Sexual dichromatism does not translate into sex‐based difference in morphology or diet for the African boomslang

Smith, C. C. D.; Layloo, Inshaaf; Maritz, Robin; Maritz, Bryan

doi:10.1111/jzo.12670

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 23 publications

(21 reference statements)

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“…High rainfall over this period was also associated with low nest predation. This effect might arise from a dilution effect, as higher rainfall is associated with generally increased breeding activity in arid regions (Lloyd 1999 ) and hence higher abundance of preys (Layloo et al 2017 ; Smith et al 2019 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangling climatic and nest predator impact on reproductive output reveals adverse high‐temperature effects regardless of helper number in an arid‐region cooperative bird

et al. 2021

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Climate exerts a major influence on reproductive processes, and an understanding of the mechanisms involved and which factors might mitigate adverse weather is fundamental under the ongoing climate change. Here, we study how weather and nest predation influence reproductive output in a social species, and examine whether larger group sizes can mitigate the adverse effects of these factors. We used a 7‐year nest predator‐exclusion experiment on an arid‐region cooperatively breeding bird, the sociable weaver. We found that dry and, especially, hot weather were major drivers of nestling mortality through their influence on nest predation. However, when we experimentally excluded nest predators, these conditions were still strongly associated with nestling mortality. Group size was unimportant against nest predation and, although positively associated with reproductive success, it did not mitigate the effects of adverse weather. Hence, cooperative breeding might have a limited capacity to mitigate extreme weather effects.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangling climatic and nest predator impact on reproductive output reveals adverse high‐temperature effects regardless of helper number in an arid‐region cooperative bird

et al. 2021

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“…Our approach has enormous potential beyond our usage of it, and we look forward to seeing its application in multiple ecological and evolutionary contexts. Even within our own dataset, we have only begun to explore the full potential of our data by addressing species-specific questions ( Layloo, Smith & Maritz, 2017 ; Maritz, Alexander & Maritz, 2019 ; Maritz et al., 2019 ; Smith et al, 2019 ). However, the dataset lends itself to addressing other questions such as seasonality in feeding and prey preference, intraguild predation, and the evolution of diet.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sharing for science: high-resolution trophic interactions revealed rapidly by social media

Maritz

2020

PeerJ

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Discrete, ephemeral natural phenomena with low spatial or temporal predictability are incredibly challenging to study systematically. In ecology, species interactions, which constitute the functional backbone of ecological communities, can be notoriously difficult to characterise especially when taxa are inconspicuous and the interactions of interest (e.g., trophic events) occur infrequently, rapidly, or variably in space and time. Overcoming such issues has historically required significant time and resource investment to collect sufficient data, precluding the answering of many ecological and evolutionary questions. Here, we show the utility of social media for rapidly collecting observations of ephemeral ecological phenomena with low spatial and temporal predictability by using a Facebook group dedicated to collecting predation events involving reptiles and amphibians in sub-Saharan Africa. We collected over 1900 independent feeding observations using Facebook from 2015 to 2019 involving 83 families of predators and 129 families of prey. Feeding events by snakes were particularly well-represented with close to 1,100 feeding observations recorded. Relative to an extensive literature review spanning 226 sources and 138 years, we found that social media has provided snake dietary records faster than ever before in history with prey being identified to a finer taxonomic resolution and showing only modest concordance with the literature due to the number of novel interactions that were detected. Finally, we demonstrate that social media can outperform other citizen science image-based approaches (iNaturalist and Google Images) highlighting the versatility of social media and its ability to function as a citizen science platform.

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“…The consumption of robust, elongate prey types presents a unique set of mechanical challenges of ingestion not present in boomslang and mole snakes. Differences in head size between boomslang and mole snakes were less prominent, although mole snakes have wider heads, possibly reflecting their propensity for preying on mammals and adult birds (Maritz & Maritz, 2020) whereas boomslang primarily consumes chicks, nestlings and chameleons (Smith et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Based on our examination of dietary data from the literature, we estimated Levins' measure of niche breadth for the rhombic eggeater as B = 1.00 (based on 31 feeding records; Bates & Little, 2013), boomslang as B = 2.91 (based on 133 feeding records; Smith et al, 2019), cape cobra as B = 4.00 (based on 101 feeding records; Layloo, Smith & Maritz, 2017) and mole snake as B = 3.23 (based on Dyer, 1996;Underhill et al, 2009;and assorted feeding records from various literature and citizen science reports (Maritz & Maritz, 2020), see Table S6). We standardized these to B A = 0.00 (rhombic egg-eater), B A = 0.32 (boomslang), B A = 0.50 (cape cobra) and B A = 0.47 (mole snake), respectively (Fig.…”

Section: Relationship Between Dietary Niche and Head Morphologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Specialized morphology, not relatively large head size, facilitates competition between a small‐bodied specialist and large‐bodied generalist competitors

Barends

Maritz

2021

Journal of Zoology

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Interspecific competition for limited resources should theoretically occur between species that are morphologically similar to each other. Consequently, species that reduce competition by adapting to specialize on a specific resource should be morphologically disparate to sympatric contemporaries and show evidence of phenotypic specialization. However, few studies have compared the morphologies of specialist and generalist competitors. In this context, we compare the feeding morphology and diet of an obligate, specialist, bird-egg-eating snake to three sympatric generalists that only facultatively consume bird eggs. We measured and compared body and head morphology of preserved museum specimens of each of four, syntopic snake species from southern Africa: the obligate bird-egg-eating rhombic egg-eater (Dasypeltis scabra), and the facultative bird-egg-eating boomslang (Dispholidus typus), cape cobra (Naja nivea) and mole snake (Pseudaspis cana). Given the physical challenges of consuming bird eggs in snakes, we predicted that consumption of bird eggs would be facilitated by the evolution of relatively larger heads in the smaller-bodied Dasypeltis. We found that head size was not phylogenetically conserved in the clades of these taxa and that contrary to our expectations, the specialist egg-eaters evolved to possess significantly smaller heads relative to body size than their competitors. We found a positive relationship between dietary niche breadth and head size within these species and their close relatives. Thus, relatively large-headed species have evolved diverse diets that overlap with the restricted diets of the small-headed specialist thereby producing this atypical competitive interaction. Our findings suggest that specialized adaptations can decouple typical body-size-constrained competition dynamics between sympatric snake species and highlight the complexity of the origins of dietary specialization.

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Sexual dichromatism does not translate into sex‐based difference in morphology or diet for the African boomslang

Cited by 9 publications

References 23 publications

Disentangling climatic and nest predator impact on reproductive output reveals adverse high‐temperature effects regardless of helper number in an arid‐region cooperative bird

Disentangling climatic and nest predator impact on reproductive output reveals adverse high‐temperature effects regardless of helper number in an arid‐region cooperative bird

Sharing for science: high-resolution trophic interactions revealed rapidly by social media

Specialized morphology, not relatively large head size, facilitates competition between a small‐bodied specialist and large‐bodied generalist competitors

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