Slugs predators

Many speoles feed exelusively on Inseots and other Invertebrate pests, Ineluding slugs and snails. This legless glass lizard Is a major slug predator. 

These data led Cates (25) to hypothesize that in areas where slugs were not abundant those plants that allocated more of their energy into growth and reproduction would be at a competitive advantage. However where slug predation was greater, those plants emphasizing the antlherblvore characteristic (unpalatablllty) would be selected for. 

Net the crop before the fruits ripen. This will exclude birds, but squirrels and raccoons may also take the fruit. Slugs love ripening strawberries. Encourage natural predators, and put down slug traps, or use a biological control see p.97) if necessary. 

In aquatic environments, chemical cues serve as an important source of information for the detection of predation risk. Chemical signals released by disturbed or injured conspecifics may provide prey animals with an early warning of danger.2 115 We now discuss two kinds of well-established alarm pheromones from sea anemone and sea slug. 

Terrestrial slugs foUow mucus trails back to their daytime resting areas, to find food, or to mate. They foUow their own, or each other s trails. Slugs can determine the direction of a mucus trail. Predators, such as snakes or aquatic sdomyzid fly larvae, follow the mucus trail to find their prey. Laying the mucus trail is energetically expensive (Cook 1979, 1992 Davies and Blackwell 2007). 

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