Figure 1 Location of the Peace River - Northern Rockies Living Landscapes region in British Columbia.

OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT

As in previous Living Landscapes reports on the terrestrial snails and slugs (Forsyth 1999, 2005), this report gathers together information on a single region of British Columbia. The geographic area covered by this report is very large (about 265,000 km²), stretching from B.C.'s northern boundary with the Yukon and Northwest Territories (60°N) south to the Rocky Mountains where it abuts the Fraser River drainage. Its eastern limit is defined by the B.C. - Alberta border (120°W) and in the west, by the eastern slopes of the Cassiar Mountains (Figure 1). The region includes all land area drained by the Peace, Liard and Fort Nelson rivers and their tributaries, with the exception of the western part of the Liard drainage, along and west of the Cassiar Highway (Hwy 37).

The terrestrial mollusc (snails and slugs) fauna is poorly known in northern British Columbia and poorly represented in public institutions. The Canadian Museum of Nature has 15 lots from the Peace River - northern Rockies region, and prior to 2001 the Royal British Columbia Museum held only two lots. The RBCM collection was later supplemented by material collected for this Living Landscapes project and by a collection of twenty lots collected and donated by Keary Walde of Fort St. John (see Annotated Species List). Additional to these, the author maintains a private research collection that contains 100 lots of land snails collected in 1998 from the region.

In the malacological literature, Harris & Hubricht (1982) cited collections of succineids from the region covered by this report, and except for Land Snails of British Columbia (Forsyth 2004), there is no information in the available literature on these animals from the northeast of B.C. In his monograph of terrestrial Mollusca, Henry A. Pilsbry (1939, 1940, 1946, 1948), does not provide any records of species from this area.

The majority of terrestrial snails in British Columbia are tiny (less than 6 mm) and therefore usually overlooked. Since the Peace River - northern Rockies does not have any large or "showy" species of snails and slugs, there are very few incidental collections or reports of these animals. Coupled with the lack of a guide to these animals in B.C. prior to the publication of Land Snails of British Columbia (Forsyth 2004) and long distances and relative remoteness of the Peace River - northern Rockies, it is therefore not surprising that we know so little about the terrestrial molluscs of the region.

In 2003 and 2004 I made collections in the Peace River - northern Rockies region, as part of the Living Landscapes program with the goals of improving our knowledge of these animals and expanding the collection holdings of the Invertebrate Zoology Collection of the Royal B.C. Museum. The main purposes of this report are to:

• Document the results of these collecting efforts;

• Add value to the specimens already part of the Royal B.C. Museum, and in other collections, by checking identifications and specimen data; and

• Amalgamate the known information into a single document.

For further information on the species recorded here, see Land Snails of British Columbia (Forsyth 2004), which includes full descriptions, figures and determination keys.

THE STUDY AREA

The Living Landscapes' Peace River - northern Rockies region stretches from the border with the Yukon and Northwest Territories in the north (60°N) to the height of land separating the Peace River drainage from the Fraser River drainage. The eastern extent of this region is formed by the B.C. - Alberta boundary (120°W), and extends west to the Cassiar Mountains (Figures 1, 2). For practical reasons, the far western portion of the Liard River drainage, including Hwy 37 north of the community of Dease Lake, is not included in the Peace River - Northern Rockies region.¹

Within the area covered by this report, expansive, lowland plateaus are drained by the Peace and Fort Nelson rivers (Alberta Plateau, an extension of the Great Plains) and the Liard River (Liard Plateau), which rise along the southern edge and western half of the region into extensive mountain systems. The Rocky Mountain Trench-a prominent valley that extends southeast from the Liard Plain-separates the northern Rockies from the more western Cassiar and Omineca mountains (Figure 2).

The climate of the Peace River - northern Rockies region is continental, characterized by long, cold to severe winters and short growing seasons. Five biogeoclimatic zones are recognized: the Boreal White and Black Spruce zone (plateau areas and northern valley bottoms); the Spruce - Willow - Birch zone (subalpine in the north); the Alpine Tundra zone (barren mountaintops); the Sub-Boreal Spruce zone (lower elevations in the south); and the Engelmann Spruce - Subalpine Fir zone (subalpine in the south). For more information and maps, see Meidinger & Pojar (1991).

Figure 2 Localities and major mountain and plateau systems in the Peace River - northern Rockies region.  1, Lower Post; 2, Coal River; 3, Liard River; 4, Muncho Lake; 5, Fort Nelson; 6 Prophet River; 7, Sikanni Chief; 8, Pink Mountain; 9, Fort St John; 10, Taylor; 11, Hudson’s Hope; 12,  Chetwynd; 13, Dawson Creek; 14, Tumbler Ridge; 15, Mackenzie; 16, Manson Creek; 17, Germansen Landing.	Figure 3 Collection localities (from all sources) in the Peace River - northern Rockies region (see Appendix for data).

₁
The Peace River - Northern Rockies, as defined for Living Landscapes, is used for convenience only and does not correspond to either ecological or administrative subdivision of British Columbia.

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