Tan Song-Wen, Wu Ya-Yong, Wang Jia-Jun, Lyu Bing, Yu Min, Zhang He, Guo Peng, Shi Lei
Xinjiang Key Laboratory for Ecological Adaptation and Evolution of Extreme Environment Biology, College of Life Sciences Xinjiang Agricultural University Urumqi China.
Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Engineering Yibin University Yibin China.
Ecol Evol. 2024 May 22;14(5):e11445. doi: 10.1002/ece3.11445. eCollection 2024 May.
Habitat is fundamental for facilitating various life activities in animals, for instance, snakes procure essential energy for survival and reproduction by selecting ambush microhabitats. While there has been extensive research on the selection of microhabitat for feeding in terrestrial and aquatic snakes, little is known about arboreal snakes. In the present study, we analyzed the ambush microhabitat preferences of , a widely distributed Asian pitviper in China, conducted association analysis between snake microhabitat and prey microhabitat and abundance to determine the ro5le of microhabitat selection in feeding. Employing random forest analysis and habitat selection functions, we further constructed a predictive framework for assessing the probability of ambush site selection by . Our results revealed that exhibited a distinct microhabitat preference for ambush prey. Among the 13 environmental factors assessed, showed pronounced preferences towards 12 of these factors, including climatic factors, geographical factors, and vegetation factors. Furthermore, although the preferences of overlapped substantially with those of its prey across multiple habitat factors, food abundance shows no significant association with various habitat factors of , and does not have significant predictive effect on habitat selection of . Therefore, we infer that does not preferentially select microhabitats with the highest food abundance, which does not support the hypothesis that "snakes select habitats based on the spatial distribution of prey abundance." By analyzing the characteristics of vegetation, geography, and climate, we conclude that tends to choose microhabitats with better ambush conditions to increase attack success rate, thereby achieving the optimal feeding success rate at the microhabitat scale, which is in line with the predictions of optimal foraging theory. This study provides new insights into the predation ecology and habitat selection of snakes.
栖息地对于促进动物的各种生命活动至关重要，例如，蛇通过选择伏击微生境来获取生存和繁殖所需的基本能量。虽然对于陆生和水生蛇类觅食时微生境选择的研究已经很广泛，但对于树栖蛇类却知之甚少。在本研究中，我们分析了中国广泛分布的亚洲蝮蛇的伏击微生境偏好，对蛇类微生境与猎物微生境及丰度进行关联分析，以确定微生境选择在觅食中的作用。利用随机森林分析和栖息地选择函数，我们进一步构建了一个预测框架，用于评估亚洲蝮蛇选择伏击地点的概率。我们的结果表明，亚洲蝮蛇对伏击猎物表现出明显的微生境偏好。在所评估的13个环境因素中，亚洲蝮蛇对其中12个因素表现出明显偏好，包括气候因素、地理因素和植被因素。此外，尽管亚洲蝮蛇在多个栖息地因素上的偏好与猎物的偏好有很大重叠，但食物丰度与亚洲蝮蛇的各种栖息地因素没有显著关联，对亚洲蝮蛇的栖息地选择也没有显著的预测作用。因此，我们推断亚洲蝮蛇不会优先选择食物丰度最高的微生境，这并不支持“蛇根据猎物丰度的空间分布选择栖息地”这一假设。通过分析植被、地理和气候特征，我们得出结论，亚洲蝮蛇倾向于选择伏击条件更好的微生境以提高攻击成功率，从而在微生境尺度上实现最佳觅食成功率，这与最优觅食理论的预测相符。本研究为蛇类的捕食生态学和栖息地选择提供了新的见解。
