Evolutionary Context of Venom in Animals

Arbuckle, Kevin

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-6458-3_16

Cited by 35 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…The response variable for both of these models was the number of functional activities (1-4) of the venom, and body length was again included as an explanatory variable in each. One of these models included the 'diet diversity' as an explanatory variable, measured by summing the number of diet categories (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6). The other model we ran instead included each diet category as a separate (binary) explanatory variable.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Venom has evolved many times throughout the animal kingdom, with most major lineages having evolved it at least once [1,2]. The frequent convergent evolution of venom systems is probably a consequence of two attributes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Firstly, all venoms are intricately tied to antagonistic coevolution [2] and this scenario is widely considered to favour the origin and elaboration of trait diversity [3][4][5]. Secondly, venom can fulfil multiple functions which are core to fitness, such as antipredator defence and prey capture, either because it is incidentally suited to functions other than those it has primarily been selected for [2], or because the venom system has specifically been selected for multiple functions [6,7]. The end result is that animal venoms are both taxonomically and functionally diverse in addition to the substantial chemical diversity widely recognized amongst toxinologists [1].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Amongst animal venoms, those of caenophidian ('advanced') snakes are the best studied, largely as a result of the global medical importance of venomous snakebite [8,9]. Despite the defensive nature of snakebites inflicted on humans, this is a secondary function in the sense that the main selective driver of snake venom evolution is prey subjugation [1,2,10]. Notwithstanding a range of other adaptive and non-adaptive processes that may have contributed to variation in snake venoms [11,12], a key role of diet-related selection is supported by a variety of types of evidence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The venom as a whole is exposed to selection only in the context of the combination of all toxins present (which may be multifunctional and/or synergistic [34]) in varying relative abundance and in various total amounts (reflecting in part venom yield). The ecological context is important to understanding the evolution of venoms in general [2,35] and should always be present in discussions of the evolutionary forces involved.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Coevolution of Snake Venom Toxic Activities and Diet: Evidence that Ecological Generalism Favours Toxicological Diversity

Davies

Arbuckle

2019

Toxins

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Snake venom evolution is typically considered to be predominantly driven by diet-related selection pressures. Most evidence for this is based on lethality to prey and non-prey species and on the identification of prey specific toxins. Since the broad toxicological activities (e.g., neurotoxicity, coagulotoxicity, etc.) sit at the interface between molecular toxinology and lethality, these classes of activity may act as a key mediator in coevolutionary interactions between snakes and their prey. Indeed, some recent work has suggested that variation in these functional activities may be related to diet as well, but previous studies have been limited in geographic and/or taxonomic scope. In this paper, we take a phylogenetic comparative approach to investigate relationships between diet and toxicological activity classes on a global scale across caenophidian snakes, using the clinically oriented database at toxinology.com. We generally find little support for specific prey types selecting for particular toxicological effects except that reptile-feeders are more likely to be neurotoxic. We find some support for endothermic prey (with higher metabolic rates) influencing toxic activities, but differently from previous suggestions in the literature. More broadly, we find strong support for a general effect of increased diversity of prey on the diversity of toxicological effects of snake venom. Hence, we provide evidence that selection pressures on the toxicological activities of snake venom has largely been driven by prey diversity rather than specific types of prey. These results complement and extend previous work to suggest that specific matching of venom characteristics to prey may occur at the molecular level and translate into venom lethality, but the functional link between those two is not constrained to a particular toxicological route.

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