Seasonal Variation in Eastern Indigo Snake (Drymarchon couperi) Movement Patterns and Space Use in Peninsular Florida at Multiple Temporal Scales

Bauder, Javan M.; Breininger, David R.; Bolt, Marvin; Legare, Michael L.; Jenkins, Christopher L.; Rothermel, Betsie B.; McGarigal, Kevin

doi:10.1655/herpetologica-d-15-00039.1

Cited by 25 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 64 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…2 km in a single day and average movement distance in males is approximately twice that of females [38, D. Breininger, unpublished data]. Furthermore, males within peninsular Florida increase their movement frequency, distance, and home range size during the breeding season [38,74]. Dispersal distance of males may be 10 times that of females [75], with a small adult male in southern Georgia dispersing at least 22.2 km (straight line) over approximately two years [50].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While there is currently no evidence of ecological differences between Atlantic and Gulf lineage snakes, snakes from northern populations are known to differ markedly from southern populations in seasonal activity. Specifically, D. couperi in the latter region do not appear dependent upon Gopher Tortoise ( Gopherus polyphemus Daudin 1802) burrows for winter refugia, likely because of milder winter temperatures [38,72,73,87,88]. As a result, use of snakes from similar latitudes appeared to be more important in ensuring successful repatriation than use of snakes from the same mitochondrial lineage.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The samples from Krysko et al [15] included individuals from central Florida that represented both mitochondrial clades where they occur in close proximity. The remaining Florida samples (N = 170) were collected during field studies of D. couperi [37,38] in and around Highlands County or opportunistically by authorized project partners. The samples from Georgia (N = 233) were collected by multiple project partners as part of a study of population fragmentation in the state (S. Spear et al, unpublished data).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Phylogenetic, population genetic, and morphological analyses reveal evidence for one species of Eastern Indigo Snake (Drymarchon couperi)

Folt

Bauder

Spear

et al. 2018

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

30Accurate species delimitation and description are necessary to guide effective conservation 31 management of imperiled species. The Eastern Indigo Snake (Drymarchon couperi) is a large 32 species in North America that is federally-protected as Threatened under the Endangered Species 33 Act. Recently, two associated studies hypothesized that Drymarchon couperi is two species. 34 Here, we use diverse approaches to test the two-species hypothesis for D. couperi. Our analyses 35 reveal that (1) phylogenetic reconstruction in previous studies was based entirely on variance of 36 mitochondrial DNA sequence data, (2) microsatellite data demonstrate significant population 37 admixture and nuclear gene flow between mitochondrial lineages, and (3) morphological 38 analyses recover a single diagnosable species. Our results are inconsistent with the two-species 39 hypothesis, thus we reject it and formally place Drymarchon kolpobasileus into synonymy with 40 D. couperi. We suggest inconsistent patterns between mitochondrial and nuclear DNA may be 41 driven by high dispersal of males relative to females. We caution against species delimitation 42 exercises when one or few loci are used without evaluation of contemporary gene flow, 43 particularly species with strong sex-biased dispersal (e.g., squamates) and/or when results have 44 implications for ongoing conservation efforts. 45 46 65 Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle [13]. 66 Current conservation management plans for D. couperi were developed under the 67 hypothesis that D. couperi represents a single species. However, this hypothesis was recently 68 challenged by Krysko et al. [15], who used DNA sequence analyses to describe two genetic 69 lineages of D. couperi -an Atlantic lineage, including populations in southeastern Georgia and 70 eastern peninsular Florida, and a Gulf lineage of populations in western and southern peninsular 71Florida and the Florida panhandle. This phylogeographic study was followed by a second paper 72 [16] that analyzed morphological variation between the Atlantic and Gulf lineages and provided 73 4 an official description of the Gulf lineage as a purported novel species, the Gulf Coast Indigo 74 Snake (Drymarchon kolpobasileus). 75 Given the conservation status of D. couperi (sensu lato), these results have potentially 76 important consequences for the conservation of Eastern Indigo Snakes. First, division of D. 77 couperi (sensu lato) into two smaller-ranged species results in two species with substantially 78 smaller population sizes that are, therefore, at greater risk of extinction (sensu [2]; e.g., [17]). 79 Second, conservation and recovery of two rare species requires more time and funds than one, 80 and both resources are in short supply. Finally, as noted by Krysko et al. [15], active 81 conservation management plans for D. couperi (sensu lato) include population repatriation 82 projects in Alabama and the Florida panhandle, where populations attributed to the Gulf lineage 83 presumably were...

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Phylogenetic, population genetic, and morphological analyses reveal evidence for one species of Eastern Indigo Snake (Drymarchon couperi)

Folt

Bauder

Spear

et al. 2018

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Additionally, D . couperi home ranges and daily movement distances are among the largest reported for terrestrial snakes, with males maintaining larger home ranges on average than females [ 38 , 39 , 40 ]. Most D .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most D . couperi breeding activity occurs from October–March, during which males search for females and may engage in male-male combat [ 34 , 38 , 40 , 41 ]. In the northern portion of its range (i.e., southern Georgia), D .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Influence of Sex and Season on Conspecific Spatial Overlap in a Large, Actively-Foraging Colubrid Snake

et al. 2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Understanding the factors influencing the degree of spatial overlap among conspecifics is important for understanding multiple ecological processes. Compared to terrestrial carnivores, relatively little is known about the factors influencing conspecific spatial overlap in snakes, although across snake taxa there appears to be substantial variation in conspecific spatial overlap. In this study, we described conspecific spatial overlap of eastern indigo snakes (Drymarchon couperi) in peninsular Florida and examined how conspecific spatial overlap varied by sex and season (breeding season vs. non-breeding season). We calculated multiple indices of spatial overlap using 6- and 3-month utilization distributions (UD) of dyads of simultaneously adjacent telemetered snakes. We also measured conspecific UD density values at each telemetry fix and modeled the distribution of those values as a function of overlap type, sex, and season using generalized Pareto distributions. Home range overlap between males and females was significantly greater than overlap between individuals of the same sex and male home ranges often completely contained female home ranges. Male home ranges overlapped little during both seasons, whereas females had higher levels of overlap during the non-breeding season. The spatial patterns observed in our study are consistent with those seen in many mammalian carnivores, in which low male-male overlap and high inter-sexual overlap provides males with greater access to females. We encourage additional research on the influence of prey availability on conspecific spatial overlap in snakes as well as the behavioral mechanisms responsible for maintaining the low levels of overlap we observed.

show abstract

Accounting for geographic variation in species‐habitat associations during habitat suitability modeling

Chandler

Jenkins²,

Bauder

2022

Ecological Applications

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Range‐wide species conservation efforts are facilitated by spatially explicit estimates of habitat suitability. However, species‐environment relationships often vary geographically and models assuming geographically constant relationships may result in misleading inferences. We present the first range‐wide habitat suitability model (HSM) for the federally threatened eastern indigo snake (Drymarchon couperi) as a case study illustrating an approach to account for known latitudinal variation in habitat associations. Specifically, we modeled habitat suitability using interactive relationships between minimum winter temperature and several a priori environmental covariates and compared our results to those from models assuming geographically constant relationships. We found that multi‐scale models including interactive effects with winter temperature outperformed single‐scale models and models not including interactive effects with winter temperature. Our top‐ranked model had suitable range‐wide predictive performance and identified numerous large (i.e., ≥1000 ha) potential habitat patches throughout the indigo snake range. Predictive performance was greatest in southern Georgia and northern Florida likely reflecting more restrictive indigo snake habitat associations in these regions. This study illustrates how modeling interactive effects between temperature and environmental covariates can improve the performance of HSMs across geographically varying environmental gradients.

show abstract

Seasonal Variation in Eastern Indigo Snake (Drymarchon couperi) Movement Patterns and Space Use in Peninsular Florida at Multiple Temporal Scales

Cited by 25 publications

References 64 publications

Phylogenetic, population genetic, and morphological analyses reveal evidence for one species of Eastern Indigo Snake (Drymarchon couperi)

Phylogenetic, population genetic, and morphological analyses reveal evidence for one species of Eastern Indigo Snake (Drymarchon couperi)

The Influence of Sex and Season on Conspecific Spatial Overlap in a Large, Actively-Foraging Colubrid Snake

Accounting for geographic variation in species‐habitat associations during habitat suitability modeling

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About