Periwinkle snails

Hundreds of periwinkle snails swarm a patch of dying marsh grass in a Louisiana marsh in July 2002. Buoyed by the effects of an intense drought, otherwise harmless periwinkle snails likely killed off thousands of acres of salt marsh in the Southeast in recent years, according to new University of Florida research. The drought, which lasted from 1999 to 2001, weakened and killed marsh grasses such as cordgrass, or Spartina alterniflora, so extensively that the snails helped kill off estimated 250,000 acres of marsh stretching over 900 miles on the Gulf and southeastern coasts between 1999 and 2003.

(University of Florida)
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