Microgeographic variation in body condition of three Mexican garter snakes in central Mexico
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecology, Zoology
- Keywords
- ontogenic reproductive status, geographical variation, interspecific variation, Central Mexico Highlands, Thamnophis
- Copyright
- © 2018 Valencia-Flores et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Microgeographic variation in body condition of three Mexican garter snakes in central Mexico. PeerJ Preprints 6:e27205v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27205v1
Abstract
Background. Geographic variation in body size and condition can reveal differential local adaptation to resource availability or climatic factors. Body size and condition are related to fitness in garter snakes (Thamnophis), thus good body condition may increase survival, fecundity in females, and mating success in males. Sympatric species are predicted to exhibit similar body condition when they experience similar environmental conditions. We focused on interspecific and geographical variation in body size and condition in three sympatric Mexican garter snakes from the highlands of Central Mexico. Methods. We assessed SVL, mass, and body condition (obtained from Major axis linear regression of ln-transformed body mass on ln-transformed SVL) in adults and juveniles of both sexes of Thamnophis eques, T. melanogaster, and T. scalaris sampled at different locations and over a 20-year period. Results. We provide a heterogeneous pattern of sexual and ontogenic reproductive status variations of body size and condition among local populations. Each garter snake species shows locations with good and poor body condition; juvenile snakes show similar body condition between populations, adults show varying body condition between populations, and adults also show sexual differences in body condition. We discuss variations in body condition as possibly related to the snakes’ life cycle differences.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.