Twenty-nine forest sites in six sampling areas in the Banat region of Romania, adjacent to Serbia, were sampled to obtain inventories of their snail faunas and to make comparisons between these and previously studied faunas in the mountains from the Sudetes in the north-west to the Southern Transylvanian Carpathians in the south. 65 species were recorded overall, with between 13 and 33 at individual sites. Among the six sampling areas that on Schist rock at high altitude differed markedly from the others, and contained mainly species also found in Carpathian forests further north. The remainder, mainly on limestone, also differed among themselves, but contained more species endemic to the region or regions to the south, together with those found mainly in open rocky habitats further north. Some species and subspecies were restricted to particular areas within the region, and although ecological factors accounted for some of these differences, they did not explain all of them. The faunas were differentiated from those in the Carpathians further north, and showed a greater affinity to those from countries to the south. These patterns indicate a transition between northern regions with locally rich but regionally poor forest faunas and those of the Balkans and Mediterranean with many restricted endemics that survived the climatic fluctuations of the Pleistocene in situ. Such faunas are no richer at site level than those from further north, but differ more among themselves even when environmental conditions are similar.

Locality, habitat and species composition matricesDetails of the locations, habitats and composition of all samples included in the paperSupplementary material.doc