Clumped isotopic compositions of cultured and natural land-snail shells and their implications

Land snails are widely distributed animals whose clumped isotope (∆47) in shell carbonates can serve as a proxy for temperature terrestrial environments. However, it is unclear whether the ∆47 values of snail shells affected by biological processes known “vital effects.” Here, we report whole Achatina fulica cultured at different temperatures growth ages (samples collected monthly). In general, mean decrease with higher cultivation temperature, which indicates they have potential use reconstructing changes. reconstructed (T47) using calibrations from Petersen et al. (2019), Bonifacie (2017), and Kelson (2017) ~6 °C than actual temperatures. Interestingly, this overestimation T47 disappears when applying Zhai al.'s (2019) calibration Bradybaena snail. This also yields good agreement between data all field-collected their growing season The above-mentioned phenomenon existence vital effect land-snail shells. variations age correlations ∆47, δ18O, δ13C indicate influence effects. Finally, suggest that may be explained kinetic fractionation through CO2 degassing associated dehydration/dehydroxylation during formation