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How Behavior and Anatomy Affect Resource Use by Snakes

Abstract Details

2020, MS, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: Biological Sciences.
The physical structure of animals and their environment are two obvious factors that can limit what animals do. However, the behaviors of animals and the choices they make can result in animals doing things that are only a small subset of what is physically possible. I used two systems to gain insights into the role of behavior in affecting resource use by snakes. First, I studied how varying the darkness, shape, and locations of artificial branches affected where snakes chose to go. Second, I studied two species of snakes to test how diet and feeding behavior were affected by the size of prey relative to the snakes’ anatomical constraints on prey size. Variation in the environment can affect the mechanical demands of locomotion as well as influence where animals choose to go. Arboreal habitats facilitate studying path choice by animals because variable branch structure has known mechanical consequences and different branches create discrete choices. Recent studies found that arboreal snakes can use vision to select shapes and locations of destinations that mechanically facilitate bridging gaps. However, the extent to which the appearance of objects unrelated to biomechanical demands affects the choice of destinations remains poorly understood for most animal taxa including snakes. Hence, I manipulated the intensity (black, gray or white), contrast, structure, and locations of destinations to test for their combined effects on perch choice during gap bridging of brown tree snakes and boa constrictors. The results presented herein provide a striking example of how visual cues unrelated to the physical structure of surfaces, such as contrast and intensity, can bias choice and, in some cases, supersede a preference for mechanically beneficial surfaces. Snakes consume their prey whole. Consequently, variation in the anatomy of the trophic apparatus of snakes directly affects gape and limits maximal prey size. However, for the foraging ecology of snakes and other systems, scant data exist regarding how often maximal capacities are taxed in nature. Hence, I quantified: 1) maximal gape, 2) the size of prey relative to maximal gape, and 3) how the type and relative size of prey affected behavior and prey handling times for two species of natricine snakes that primarily eat soft- (Regina septemvittata) or hard-shell (Liodytes alleni) crayfish. Several of the differences between the crayfish-eating snakes including maximal gape, prey size, prey handling times and behavior resemble those between two phylogenetically distant species of homalopsid snakes that consume either hard- or soft-shell crabs. In both groups of crustacean-eating snakes, the decreased prey capture success in captivity and the rare consumption of relatively large hard-shell crustaceans in the field suggest that the ability to capture this type of prey constrains prey size more commonly than maximal gape. Regina septemvittata was superior to the other species based on new metrics of potential feeding performance that integrated snake size and gape with the relative mass of prey.
Bruce Jayne, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Daniel Buchholz, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Takuya Konishi, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
82 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Gripshover, N. D. (2020). How Behavior and Anatomy Affect Resource Use by Snakes [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1592169372520981

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Gripshover, Noah. How Behavior and Anatomy Affect Resource Use by Snakes. 2020. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1592169372520981.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Gripshover, Noah. "How Behavior and Anatomy Affect Resource Use by Snakes." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1592169372520981

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)