Population Demography of Arafura Filesnakes (Serpentes: Acrochordidae) in Tropical Australia

Houston, Darryl; Shine, Richard

doi:10.2307/1564525

Cited by 26 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…It should be noted that due to our model structure, this parameter estimate represents the moon fraction effect exclusively for nocturnal species. Prior work has especially emphasized the negative influence of moonlight on the activity levels of nocturnal snake species (Madsen and Osterkamp, 1982;Houston and Shine, 1994;Clarke et al, 1996;Lardner et al, 2014), but our analysis of the Ellenton Bay data suggests diurnal species may actually show a greater drop in activity closer to full moons. The negative estimate for the moon fraction*diurnality interaction term in our Ellenton Bay global model indicates that diurnal species would have reduced activity on brighter nights.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 57%

“…Previous studies have found conflicting results regarding the influence of moonlight on snake activity. Some studies report reduced activity under brighter conditions (Madsen and Osterkamp, 1982;Houston and Shine, 1994;Clarke et al, 1996;Lardner et al, 2014), some suggest shifts in habitat use (Campbell et al, 2008), some find no association (Daltry et al, 1998;Sperry et al, 2013), and still others show increased activity (Spence-Bailey et al, 2010;Lillywhite and Brischoux, 2012). Additionally, effects of moonlight may be age-specific (Clarke et al, 1996), a factor we cannot account for in the present study, and one that could contribute to variation we observed in responses to moon fraction.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 54%

“…For some species, activity is heavily influenced by factors like temperature (Marques et al, 2001;Sun et al, 2001;Spence-Bailey et al, 2010). Increased moonlight may limit snake activity, especially in nocturnal species where lunar illumination can affect both foraging success and predation risk (Madsen and Osterkamp, 1982;Houston and Shine, 1994;Clarke et al, 1996). However, environmental factors can have apparently little effect on activity patterns of some snake species (Brown and Shine, 2002).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Too Cold, Too Wet, Too Bright, or Just Right? Environmental Predictors of Snake Movement and Activity

Eskew

Todd

2017

Copeia

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 57%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 54%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Too Cold, Too Wet, Too Bright, or Just Right? Environmental Predictors of Snake Movement and Activity

Eskew

Todd

2017

Copeia

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“…However, the majority of reptile species (and individuals) inhabit tropical rather than temperate-zone habitats (Vitt 1987), so their levels of activity are unlikely to be constrained by the need to achieve high body temperatures . Instead, factors such as moonlight (Madsen & Osterkamp 1982;Houston & Shine 1994) and relative humidity or moisture (Henderson & Hoevers 1977;Dalrymple et al . 1991;Daltry et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of weather conditions on activity of tropical snakes

Brown¹,

Shine²

2008

Austral Ecology

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There are many anecdotal reports of massive day-to-day variation in activity levels of tropical reptiles and amphibians, and intuition suggests that weather conditions may be responsible for much of that variation. Our analysis of a large data set on the activity levels of tropical snakes and frogs confirms the existence of this short-term variation in activity levels, reveals strong synchrony between sympatric taxa in this respect, but also shows that standard weather variables (temperature, humidity, precipitation, moonlight, atmospheric pressure) are surprisingly poor at predicting the numbers of individuals and species encountered during standardized surveys. We recorded the numbers of snakes and prey taxa (frogs) encountered on 349 nights over the course of one year on a 1.3-km transect in the Adelaide River floodplain, in the wet-dry tropics of Australia. Frogs, water pythons ( Liasis fuscus ), slatey-grey snakes ( Stegonotus cucullatus ) and keelbacks ( Tropidonophis mairii ) all showed strongly seasonal patterns of activity. After adjusting for seasonal differences, encounter rates were related to climatic conditions but different taxa responded to different weather variables. Water python activity was related to amount of moonlight, keelback activity was related to temperature, and frog activity was related to relative humidity, rainfall, temperature and moonlight. However, weather variables explained relatively little of the variation in activity levels. Strong synchrony was evident among encounter rates with various taxa (independent of season and weather conditions), suggesting that activity levels may be determined by other unmeasured factors.

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“…Indeed, the only other long-term ecological studies on tropical snakes have been carried out at sites close to those used for our own study (Houston & Shine, 1994;, 1999a. Given that most snakes live in tropical areas, this is a remarkable (and deplorable) situation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Reproductive ecology of a tropical natricine snake, Tropidonophis mairii (Colubridae)

Brown

Shine

2002

Journal of Zoology

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Although most snake species are tropical, very little is known about their biology. We monitored reproductive histories of individually marked natricine colubrid snakes (keelbacks, Tropidonophis mairii) for 18-months in a tropical Australian¯oodplain. Our data provide the ®rst unambiguous records (for any snake species) of individual females in a natural population producing multiple clutches of eggs during a single breeding season. The snakes bred throughout drier months of the year. The mean size of reproducing females decreased over the season, whereas relative clutch mass increased signi®cantly over the same time period. Larger females produced eggs that were not only larger, but also shorter and wider, than those of smaller females. Despite producing two clutches in short succession, female keelbacks grew over the intervening period. Thus, they switch from`capital breeding' (building up stores of energy during the wet season to use for reproduction in the dry season) to`income breeding' (relying on recently ingested energy to support both growth and reproduction during the dry season). Two females marked at hatching were recaptured as breeding adults < 12 months later, con®rming that maturation is attained more rapidly in this species than in temperate-zone natricines.

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Population Demography of Arafura Filesnakes (Serpentes: Acrochordidae) in Tropical Australia

Cited by 26 publications

References 11 publications

Too Cold, Too Wet, Too Bright, or Just Right? Environmental Predictors of Snake Movement and Activity

Too Cold, Too Wet, Too Bright, or Just Right? Environmental Predictors of Snake Movement and Activity

Influence of weather conditions on activity of tropical snakes

Reproductive ecology of a tropical natricine snake, Tropidonophis mairii (Colubridae)

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