Unsurprisingly, water snakes love water. But what happens when this precious resource dries out? This week we discuss the effects of drought on various American water snakes, and pay homage to a newly described Mesoamerican snake. FULL REFERENCE LIST AVAILABLE AT: herphighlights.podbean.com

Main Paper References:

Rose, JP, and BD Todd. 2017. “Demographic Effects of Prolonged Drought on a Nascent Introduction of a Semi-Aquatic Snake.” Biological Invasions 19 (10): 2885–98. doi:10.1007/s10530-017-1491-4.

Vogrinc, PN, AM Durso, CT Winne, and JD Willson. 2018. “Landscape-Scale Effects of Supra-Seasonal Drought on Semi-Aquatic Snake Assemblages.” Wetlands.

Species of the Bi-Week:

Campbell, JA. 2015. “A New Species of Rhadinella (Serpentes: Colubridae) from the Pacific Versant of Oaxaca, Mexico.” Zootaxa 3918 (3): 397.

Other Mentioned Papers/Studies:

Brown, GP, and PJ Weatherhead. 1999. “Growth and Sexual Size Dimorphism in Northern Water Snakes (Nerodia Sipedon).” Copeia 1999 (3): 723.

Fernández, M., Hamilton, H., Alvarez, O., & Guo, Q. (2012). Does adding multi-scale climatic variability improve our capacity to explain niche transferability in invasive species?. Ecological modelling, 246, 60-67.

Fuller, TE, KL Pope, DT Ashton, and HH Welsh. 2011. “Linking the Distribution of an Invasive Amphibian (Rana Catesbeiana) to Habitat Conditions in a Managed River System in Northern California.” Restoration Ecology 19 (201): 204–13.

King, RB, JM Ray, and KM Stanford. 2006. “Gorging on Gobies: Beneficial Effects of Alien Prey on a Threatened Vertebrate.” Canadian Journal of Zoology 84 (1): 108–15.

Mahoney, P. J. et al. (2015) ‘Introduction effort, climate matching and species traits as predictors of global establishment success in non-native reptiles’, Diversity and Distributions, 21(1), pp. 64–74.

Mazzotti, F. J., Cherkiss, M. S., Hart, K. M., Snow, R. W., Rochford, M. R., Dorcas, M. E., & Reed, R. N. (2011). Cold-induced mortality of invasive Burmese pythons in south Florida. Biological Invasions, 13(1), 143-151.

McClelland, P, JT Reardon, F Kraus, CJ Raxworthy, and C Randrianantoandro. 2015. “Asian Toad Eradication Feasibility Report for Madagascar.” Te Anau, New Zealand.

Pounds, JA, MPL Fogden, and JH Campbell. 1999. “Biological Response to Climate Change on a Tropical Mountain.” Nature 398 (6728): 611–15.

Rose, JP, and BD Todd. 2014. “Projecting Invasion Risk of Non-Native Watersnakes (Nerodia Fasciata and Nerodia Sipedon) in the Western United States.” Edited by Benedikt R. Schmidt. PLoS ONE 9 (6): e100277.

Music:

Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson

Other Music – The Passion HiFi, www.thepassionhifi.com