1988/03/01 by J. Malcolm Macartney, Patrick T. Gregory, Karl W. Larsen · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Amphibian and Reptile Biology #Wildlife Ecology and Conservation #Animal Behavior and Reproduction
paper · doi:10.2307/1564357
Although movement patterns should reflect important aspects of a species' ecology, a survey of published information on snake movements reveals few general trends among species, populations, or individuals within populations. Snakes are sometimes difficult to study, and some of the problems associated with them (e.g., crypticity of young) will not be overcome easily. However, general patterns might be more evident if: (1) studies were done over reasonably long time periods; (2) methods of data collection, analysis, and presentation were standardized to some extent; and (3) factors that might affect movement patterns (especially resource requirements and distribution) of different individuals became a focus of attention. An animal's use of space reflects to a large extent the spatial availability of its resources (Waser and Wiley, 1979), whether those resources be food, mates, shelter, or other requirements. Numerous constraints will affect movements of individuals. For example, animals that maintain spacing between individuals will be influenced by the presence or absence of conspecifics. Movements of ectothermic animals will be limited temporally and spatially to some degree by the thermal regime of the environment (e.g., Peterson, 1982). Predators and interspecific competitors similarly might constrain activity patterns of a species. Effects should differ among populations of a species in different environments, and among subgroups (e.g., sexes, ages) within populations if those subgroups differ in their requirements. Clearly, the determination of movement patterns and the factors that influence such patterns is integral to both theoretical and applied ecology. Although the aim of theory is to delineate general patterns in nature, such delineation ultimately depends upon information from a wide range of taxa. Movements of snakes frequently have been studied, but these animals are scarcely mentioned in the most recent collection of articles on animal movements, and then in 1 Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. 2 Present address: Department of Zoology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E1. only one paper (viz., Mace et al., 1984). The only serious attempt to review published information and draw broad conclusions about snake movement patterns has been that of Gregory et al. (1987). Gregory et al. summarized, in a general way, the methods used to study movements of snakes, methods used to calculate home ranges, and strengths and weaknesses of the various methods; they also attempted to elucidate general trends from the data available. However, a detailed summary of the data set was not included in that review. We present such a tabulation here in the hope that it will provide the beginning of a comparative data base, point out the variability of the kinds of information available for a wide spectrum of populations, and indicate where major gaps exist.