ORIGINAL PAPER Recolonization of a burned Mediterranean area by terrestrial gastropods Xavier Santos Æ Vicenc ¸ Bros Æ A ` ngel Min ˜o Received: 15 April 2008 / Accepted: 3 April 2009 / Published online: 24 April 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract Wildfires are common natural perturbations in Mediterranean ecosystems. Their frequency and extent have changed in recent decades to become one of the main ecological problems for wildlife. The response of fauna to wildfires depends greatly on the life histories and biological traits of each species. Terrestrial gastropods have limited mobility, and their presence is restricted by the vegetal and abiotic characteristics of habitats. For this reason, they are expected to have a low ability to recolonize burned areas. We have explored their survivorship and recolonization patterns according to the cryptic- refuge and fire-edge models in a Mediterranean protected area affected by a large fire in August 2003. The low number of species recorded at burned sites demonstrates the neg- ative effects of a wildfire on the richness of gastropod assemblages 4 years after the perturbation. However, the total number of living individuals did not vary between burned and unburned areas, suggesting an after-fire shift in dominant species from woodland to open-space species. Forest species with wide European distributions dominated in unburned sites, whereas open-space species and xerophytic Mediterranean species were present at burned sites. These differences were evident even at the burned sites closest to the unburned forest, suggesting low recolonization rates from the fire edge. By contrast, the abundance of xerophilous species as well as isolated records of mesophilous species in the burned areas suggests the survival of small populations and further recuperation after fire following the cryptic-refuge model. Keywords Biodiversity Á Burned areas Á Land snails Á Recolonization Á Wildfires X. Santos Á V. Bros Á A ` . Min ˜o Parc Natural de Sant Llorenc ¸ del Munt i l’Obac, Oficina Te `cnica de Parcs Naturals, Diputacio ´ de Barcelona, c/Urgell 187, Edif. Rellotge 3 a , 08036 Barcelona, Spain X. Santos (&) Departament de Biologia Animal, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona, Spain e-mail: xsantos1@ub.edu 123 Biodivers Conserv (2009) 18:3153–3165 DOI 10.1007/s10531-009-9634-2