1 1 This manuscript is contextually identical with the following published paper: 2 Bruno Baur, Anette Baur, Denes Schmera (2017) Impact assessment of intense sport 3 climbing on limestone cliffs: esponse of rock-dwelling land snails. Ecological 4 Indicators 72 (2017) 260-267. 5 The original published PDF available in this website: 6 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X16303958?via%3Dihub 7 8 Impact assessment of intense sport climbing on limestone cliffs: 9 response of rock-dwelling land snails 10 11 Bruno Baura, Anette Baura, Denes Schmeraa,b,* 12 13 a Section of Conservation Biology, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of 14 Basel, St. Johanns-Vorstadt 10, 4056 Basel, Switzerland 15 b MTA, Centre for Ecological Research, Balaton Limnological Institute, Klebelsberg 16 Kuno 3, 8237 Tihany, Hungary 17 18 * Corresponding author at: MTA, Centre for Ecological Research, Balaton Limnological 19 Institute, Klebelsberg Kuno 3, 8237 Tihany, Hungary, Tel.: +36 87 448244 / 132, fax +36 20 87 448006 21 22 E-mail addresses:
[email protected] (B. Baur),
[email protected] (A. Baur), 23
[email protected] (D. Schmera) 24 2 25 ABSTRACT 26 Exposed limestone cliffs in the Swiss Jura Mountains harbour a diverse gastropod community 27 with some rare species. Sport climbing has recently increased in popularity on these cliffs. We 28 examined the effects of sport climbing and microtopographical features of rock faces on 29 terrestrial gastropods by assessing species diversity and abundance on climbing routes and in 30 unclimbed areas of seven isolated cliffs in the Northern Swiss Jura Mountains. We considered 31 exclusively living individuals resting attached to rock faces.