Effects of artificial liming on land snail populations.

Plots in a beech-forest in southern Sweden were artificially limed with 2, 5 and 10 tonnes of dolomite lime ha-&sup-1;. Snail populations were sampled. The population increases correlated with lime dosages. In plots treated with 10t ha-¹, mean densities increased 4–40 times, depending on the species (5 years after liming). There were highly significant correlations between snail density and pH, Ca concentration, base cation concentration and base saturation; however, the correlations between nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium were very low. The results indicate that liming positively effects land snail population densities in relatively nutrient-poor deciduous forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]