Congenital feeding response to a novel prey in a Mexican gartersnake

PeerJ

article

Javier Manjarrez¹  Constantino Macías Garcia²  Hugh Drummond² 

[1] Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México;Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria

关键词: Neonates;    Thamnophis;    Crayfish;    Chemosensory response;    Ingestive response;    Feeding niche;    Behavioral response;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.8718

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

In this study, we explored chemosensory, ingestive and prey-catching responses of neonate Mexican Black-bellied Gartersnakes (Thamnophis melanogaster) to crayfish (Cambarellus montezumae). By comparing snakes from a recently discovered crayfish-eating population and a typical non-crayfish-eating population, we asked which behavioral components change as a species enlarges its feeding niche. In the crayfish-eating population chemosensory responsiveness to crayfish was not enhanced but its heritability was higher. Neonates of both populations showed similar preference for freshly-molted versus unmolted crayfish, and whereas the tendency to ingest both crayfish stages remained stable between ages 15 and 90 days in the non-crayfish-eating population, in the crayfish-eating population it actually decreased. Techniques to catch and manipulate molted crayfish were similar in the two populations. We discuss the possibility that there is no increase in the behavioral response to eat crayfish by the neonates of the crayfish-eating populations, possibly due to the absence of ecological and spatial isolation between the two T. melanogaster populations. The crayfish ingestion in some population of T. melanogaster can be explained by environmental differences between populations, or by recent origin of crayfish ingestion in T. melanogaster.

【 授权许可】

CC BY