Diagnosis of the behavior of the African snail (Lissachatina fulica) by means of its mucous membrane interspecies communication vector

Several pulmonary snails search for and / or follow trails left by their species for purposes such as feeding, aggregation and reproduction. In the project characterization of the ecological behavior under controlled conditions among the individuals of the species Lissachatina fulica to know the frequency with which they follow the trail and directions made by their congeners, and with that to plan a later control of this pest, for these Variables such as the age, size and condition of the snail and the receiving snail were proposed. Nine treatments were performed during the day and at night. The directions chosen by the recipient snails were observed during the experiments, followed by statistical analysis of the data using the chi-square test, obtaining results in relation to the treated individuals versus the total of the repetitions of the treatments and the control. From the statistical processing, the three more significant treatments(C, D, H) were selected, which were repeated at night. The results show that the treatment C is significant and its ecological behavior indicates that a number of snails follow the trail, concluding that there is a chemical communication between juvenile snails, being designated as the best treatment, nevertheless treatment H was also statistically significant. However it was defined as the worst treatment, since its ecological behavior is similar during day and night, the individuals don’t follow the trace demonstrating that there is no chemical communication between adult and juvenile snails.