Data from: Forest snail faunas from Transylvania (Romania), and their relationship to the faunas of Central and Northern Europe

Forty-three forest sites in seven sampling areas in mountainous parts of Transylvania were sampled to obtain inventories of their snail faunas, and to make comparisons between these and the faunas of similar sites further north along the Carpathian chain. Sampling areas ran from close to the Ukrainian border in the north to Retezat in the south-west. Altogether, 83 species were found, and between 19 and 40 species at individual sites. Sites within the same sampling area had more species in common than in among-area comparisons, but differences between areas did not relate to distance between them. Such differences appeared to relate more to ecological factors than to geography. Faunas of all areas were very similar to those recorded from the Polish and Ukrainian Carpathians; distance from these northern faunas had little effect on similarity. More broadly, the fauna of these forests shows much greater affinity to those of countries to the north than to those of countries to the south. Despite the survival of forests through the last glacial period of the Pleistocene, and the greater proximity to potential Mediterranean refugia, these faunas appear to be mainly a subset of those found further north. They represent a rather small proportion of the known Romanian fauna, in which there are many endemics restricted to other habitats.针对特兰西瓦尼亚山区7个采样区域内的43处森林样地开展采样，以获取其蜗牛动物区系（snail faunas）的编目记录，并与喀尔巴阡山脉沿线更北部的同类样地的动物区系开展对比研究。采样区域范围北至紧邻乌克兰边境地带，西南至勒泰扎特（Retezat）。本次调查共记录到83个蜗牛物种，单处样地的物种数介于19至40种之间。同一采样区域内的样地相较于跨区域样地，共享的蜗牛物种更多；但不同区域间的群落差异与样地间的地理距离并无关联。这类群落差异更多与生态因子相关，而非地理因素。所有采样区域的蜗牛动物区系，与波兰和乌克兰喀尔巴阡山区记录的群落极为相似；与北部这些群落的距离对群落相似度影响极小。从更宏观的视角来看，本次研究涉及的森林蜗牛动物区系，与北部国家的同类群落的亲缘关联度远高于南部国家。尽管这些森林在更新世末次冰期得以存续，且距离潜在地中海生物避难所更近，但该区域的蜗牛动物区系本质上仍是北部地区群落的一个子集。该区域的蜗牛类群仅占罗马尼亚已知蜗牛动物区系的极小一部分，而罗马尼亚已知蜗牛动物区系中存在大量仅局限于其他生境的特有物种。