022 The Ebb and Flow of Water Snakes

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