CE: CF: cag
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Physa cubensis (Pfeiffer, 1939) (Gastropoda: Physidae) in tobacco floating nurseries
Presencia de Physa cubensis (Pfeiffer, 1939) (Gastropoda: Physidae) en semilleros flotantes de Tabaco
Leonardo Hurtado Luna1y Blas Pérez Silva2
1UCTB Estación Experimental Cabaiguán. Carr. Santa Lucía Km 2 Cabaiguán, Sancti Spiritus, Cuba. CP 62410
2Agencia MA-ANAV. Empresa GEOCUBA Villa Clara - Sancti Spíritus, Santa Clara, Villa Clara, Cuba. CP 53100
E-mail:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
ABSTRACT
Natural fresh water constitutes the habitat of a great variety of fluvial mollusks in Cuba; the environmental, technological and social interactions generate transformation risks, as well as, processes of ecological degradation in the ecosystems whose consequences affect the biotic community. To evaluate the causes that produced the appearance of snails of the gender Physa cubensis (Pfeiffer) it was the objective of this study, developed in the tobacco floating nursery of the UCTB Cabaiguán Experimental Station, at the end of the tobacco campaign 2013-2014, during which damages were observed in the leaves of tobacco plantlets, related with the presence of this snails gender. Snails were manually collected, identifying each sample before the shipment to the laboratory. Census of snails in the floating nursery, showed a population constituted by 9 individuals / m2 in each pool, which were in different development states, but no eggs. 9.33 % of plantlets of each tray showed areas with the typical scratch of the snail's radula, holes with irregular borders, up to the almost total destruction of the leaf area. The presence of Physa revealed the use of bad quality water for filling floats nurseries, so that mollusks found abundant feeding in the young plantlets. The study of combined control measures is recommended for this freshwater mollusk species in floating nurseries.
