Summary1. Land snail dispersal abilities are considered poor; however, the current invasion of the French Mediterranean region by Xeropicta derbentina (Krynicki 1836), as well as the past invasions of this region by several other species, seems to contradict this view. 2. Using a multilevel approach, from individual experimentation to landscape analysis, the dispersal abilities and mechanisms allowing the passive dispersal of X. derbentina are studied. 3. The colonization of Provence occurred by stratified diffusion, where short-range active dispersal occurs side by side with long-range passive dispersal. 4. Active dispersal is not as limited as previously thought. In the field, the capturemark-recapture method recorded a maximum distance covered of 42 m in 6 months within a radius of 38 m from the original release point. 5. Temperature and humidity, and therefore the time of year, influence the main type of dispersal. Dispersal is active during wet periods and essentially passive in dry and hot months. 6. Heat avoidance behaviour is one of the mechanisms allowing passive dispersal. 7. Passive dispersal via human activities is the main determinant of X. derbentina distribution within the landscape. In comparison to other species, X. derbentina is found more often in the vicinity of a communication route. 8. These results show that land snails can cover large distances in a lifetime. The potential for active and passive dispersal described in this paper enables X. derbentina to be a successful invasive species and explains the rapid spread and current distribution of this species.

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Aim Species richness is an important feature of communities that varies along elevational gradients. Different patterns of distribution have been described in the literature for various taxonomic groups. This study aims to distinguish between species density and species richness and to describe, for land snails in southeastern France, the altitudinal patterns of both at different spatial scales.Location The study was conducted on five calcareous mountains in southeastern France (Etoile, Sainte Baume, Sainte Victoire, Ventoux and Queyras).Methods Stratified sampling according to vegetation and altitude was undertaken on five mountains, forming a composite altitudinal gradient ranging from 100 to 3100 m. Visual searching and analysis of turf samples were undertaken to collect land snail species. Species density is defined as the number of species found within quadrats of 25 m 2 . Species richness is defined as the number of species found within an elevation zone. Different methods involving accumulation curves are used to describe the patterns in species richness. Elevation zones of different sizes are studied.Results Eighty-seven species of land snails were recovered from 209 samples analysed during this study. Land snail species density, which can vary between 29 and 1 species per 25 m 2 , decreases logarithmically with increasing altitude along the full gradient. However, on each mountain separately, only a linear decrease is observable. The climatic altitudinal gradient can explain a large part of this pattern, but the great variability suggests that other factors, such as heterogeneity of ground cover, also exert an influence on species density. The altitudinal pattern of species richness varies depending on the spatial resolution of the study. At fine resolution (altitudinal zones of 100 m) land snail species richness forms a plateau at altitudes below 1000 m, before decreasing with increasing altitude. At coarse resolution (altitudinal zones of 500 and 1000 m) the relationship becomes linear.Main conclusions This study reveals that land snail species density and land snail species richness form two different altitudinal patterns. Species density exhibits strong variability between sites of comparable altitude. A large number of samples seem necessary to study altitudinal patterns of species density. Species density decreases logarithmically with increasing altitude. Above a critical altitudinal threshold, this decrease lessens below the rate seen in the first 1500 m. Different methods exist to scale-up species density to species richness but these often produce different patterns. In this study, the use of accumulation curves has yielded a pattern of species richness showing a plateau at low altitude, whereas simple plotting of known altitudinal ranges from single mountains would have produced stronger mid-altitudinal peaks. This study shows that not only factors Journal of Biogeography (J. Biogeogr.) (2005) 32, 985-998 ª 2005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd www.blackwellpublishing.com/jbi

This work investigates the impact of Forbush decrease (FD) and ground-level enhancement (GLE) in the atmosphere, based on solar and galactic cosmic-ray models and the extensive air shower simulations. This approach gives the possibility to investigate both the dynamic behavior of neutron monitors (NM) (using response function) and the flight dose. The ambient dose equivalent during quiet solar activity and solar events (i.e., FDs and GLEs) were investigated for realistic flight plans issued from the Eurocontrol Demand Data Repository. The calculated ambient dose equivalents were compared with flight measurements in quiet solar conditions; comparisons are relevant and demonstrate the ability to estimate the dose level. The GLE model was validated for the GLEs 5 and 69 using the cosmic-ray variation recorded by NMs. The GLE model was applied to flight dose calculations. All of these results show that dose values vary drastically with the route path (latitude, longitude and altitude) and with the delay between the flight departure and the solar event occurrence. Doses induced by extreme GLE events were investigated specifically for London to New York flights, and resulting additional doses are a few hundred or 1,000 μSv, impacting significantly the annual effective dose. This highlights the importance of monitoring extreme solar events and using realistic semi-empirical and particle transport methods for reliable calculation of dose levels.