Habitat use in basking Northern water (Nerodia sipedon) and Eastern garter (Thamnophis sirtalis) snakes in urban New Jersey

Burger, Joanna; Jeitner, Christian; Jensen, Heather J.; Fitzgerald, Megan; Carlucci, Stacey; Shukla, Sheila; Burke, Sean; Ramos, Robert; Gochfeld, Michael

doi:10.1023/b:ueco.0000020169.86700.76

Cited by 29 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…NS not significant only minimal habituation (Burger et al 2004). Further, Parent and Weatherhead (2000) found that snakes continued to respond to people as if they were predators in disturbed areas, regardless of the level of disturbance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…There have been few studies of the effects of humans on other vertebrates, such as fish or reptiles, largely because of their solitary or secretive nature and the difficulty of observation. Burger et al (2004) examined the effect of pedestrians on the behavioral responses of basking Northern water (Nerodia sipedon) and Eastern garter (Thamnophis sirtalis) snakes along a canal in New Jersey. Factors that affected their response to people walking along the canal were distance of the basking snake from the trail, number of people in the immediate group, and number of people who had used the path that day.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The behavioral response of emerging pine snakes (Pituophis melanoleucus) to people: implications for survival and protection

Burger

2007

Urban Ecosyst

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Considerable attention has been devoted to the effects of people on birds and mammals, usually in wilderness areas. In contrast, human disturbance of reptiles has largely been ignored. Many reptiles, such as snakes, are hard to conserve because they are difficult to locate and protect. The young are especially vulnerable to predators when they first hatch and must emerge from nest sites. In this paper, the response of pine snake (Pituophis melanoleucus) hatchlings to the presence and handling by people was observed in the laboratory and in the field. Pine snakes lay their eggs in underground burrows in open sandy pine barrens, and the hatchlings push their way to the surface to emerge. Hatchlings that were visually-disturbed or touched as they emerged returned immediately to their tunnels and nests, and required more time to re-emerge than did their siblings that were not visually-disturbed or touched during their initial disturbance. In nature, undisturbed pine snakes showed similar re-emergence times to those from the laboratory, and disturbed snakes required longer to re-emerge. These data suggest that in nature even the presence of people in nesting areas of pine snakes would lengthen the time the young are in burrows, exposing them to additional threats from predators. This suggests that parks or nature reserves with vulnerable snake populations should restrict human disturbance during the period when young snakes are emerging from their nests. Field observations indicate that a set-back distance of more than 12 m from known nesting areas is essential to protect emerging hatchlings.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The behavioral response of emerging pine snakes (Pituophis melanoleucus) to people: implications for survival and protection

Burger

2007

Urban Ecosyst

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“…Moreover, most of the studies of these effects of human disturbance deal with short-term effects, and not with observable effects on reproductive success, recruitment, or fitness. Further, in many of the studies with reptiles, adverse effects were attributed to general human disturbance, and not to a specific human activity that was amenable to management to reduce these effects (but see Burger 2001). Partly this results from the diversity of human activities that are common in urban areas, making isolation of one factor difficult.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Some attention has focused on reptiles, particularly on disturbance to nesting turtles and lizards (Schlaepfer 2003;Jessop and Hamann 2004;Moore and Seigel 2006), effects on basking or foraging reptiles (Burger 2001;Parent and Weatherhead 2000;Goldingay and Newell 2000), effects of roads (Garber and Burger 1995;Gibbs and Shriver 2002), effects of livestock on nesting reptiles (Homyack and Giuliano 2002;Semlitsch and Bodie 2003), and the effect of forest management on reptile assemblages (Brown 2001;Russell et al 2002). The lack of studies with snakes is largely because of their solitary or secretive nature and the difficulty of observation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Effects of off-road vehicles on reproductive success of pine snakes (Pituophus melanoleucus) in the New Jersey pinelands

et al. 2007

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Considerable attention has been devoted to the effects of people and their vehicles on birds and mammals, but possible effects on reptiles in populated areas have received less attention. Moreover, the effects of human activities on reptile reproductive success itself has been harder to demonstrate. This paper examines the effect of management of off-road vehicles in New Jersey's pinelands on the reproductive success of pine snakes (Pituophus melanoleucus) from 1986 to 2005. We used the percentage of snakes in each hibernaculum that were young of the year (hatchlings) as an indicator of reproductive success, and compared this percent for five hibernacula that were in an area with varying degrees of off-road vehicle (ORV) disturbance, with 12 hibernacula in areas with no ORV disturbances (reference sites). This percent took into account differences in absolute numbers from one location to another, and over time due to hibernacula destruction (by people or predators) and natural variations (food supply). The ORV pressure in the pinelands is intense because it lies within the most densely populated urban area in the United States. Although the number of snakes in the reference hibernacula varied over the years from 46 to 63, the percent of young in these hibernacula did not vary significantly over the 20 year period (21-29%). In contrast, the percent-young in the disturbed sites differed significantly in years without ORV disturbance (28%) compared to those with ORV disturbance (15 and 16%, P<0.01). Further, there were no differences between the percent of young in the reference sites and those in the disturbed site in years without ORV disturbance. ORV disturbance ceased only with the creation of large dirt berms coupled with fences that could not be easily broken. These data indicate the importance of having detailed population data on pine snakes in hibernacula, on ORV use (or indications of such use), and of managing ORV use to protect sensitive populations. Maintenance of healthy pine snake populations in urban areas may require continued adaptive management.

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“…Notably, snakes are known to host a variety of parasites Telford 2009) and often persist and even thrive in urban environments, including urban parks (Shine and Koenig 2001;Burger et al 2004;Pattishall and Cundall 2009;Smith et al 2009;Vignoli et al 2009). Moreover, snakes vary tremendously in size, fill numerous ecological niches, occupy a variety of trophic levels in ecosystems, and tend to live longer than most endothermic hosts (Greene 1997).…”

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confidence: 99%

Snake parasitism in an urban old-growth forest

et al. 2012

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Urban-associated changes can have immediate or long-term consequences on animal populations. Such changes may be assessed through parasite prevalence and abundance in wildlife hosts, as urbanization can influence parasitism and disease transmission in wildlife. Snakes are widespread and diverse vertebrates that often persist in urban environments; however, parasitism of snakes in urban environments has yet to be studied, leaving the roles of snakes in parasite transmission uncharacterized. Field ecology, microscopy, molecular techniques, and geographic information science (GIS) were integrated to characterize parasitism of snakes in an urban old-growth forest park. The species, sex, mass, length, location, and prevalence of ecto-, hemo-, and fecal parasites were determined for 34 snakes of 6 species. Ectoparasites (mite), hemoparasites (Hepatozoon spp.), and fecal parasites (Entamoeba spp., Trichomonas spp., Strongloides spp., and an unidentified helminth) were detected in snakes and 64.7 % of snakes were infected by at least one of these parasites. Parasite infections were generally not related to the sex, age, or body condition of snakes. The locations of infected snakes were used to produce risk maps indicating where parasite prevalence is predicted to be greatest. The analysis of these maps indicated that snakes with fecal parasites were closer than non-infected snakes to the edge of the forest. This study confirms that snakes may be important parasite hosts or reservoirs in parasite transmission pathways in urban environments and it provides an integrative multidisciplinary approach that may be used to monitor parasitism dynamics in other urban wildlife areas.

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Habitat use in basking Northern water (Nerodia sipedon) and Eastern garter (Thamnophis sirtalis) snakes in urban New Jersey

Cited by 29 publications

References 12 publications

The behavioral response of emerging pine snakes (Pituophis melanoleucus) to people: implications for survival and protection

The behavioral response of emerging pine snakes (Pituophis melanoleucus) to people: implications for survival and protection

Effects of off-road vehicles on reproductive success of pine snakes (Pituophus melanoleucus) in the New Jersey pinelands

Snake parasitism in an urban old-growth forest

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