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Congenital feeding response to a novel prey in a Mexican gartersnake

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 pop...

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Autores principales: Manjarrez, Javier, Macías Garcia, Constantino, Drummond, Hugh
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7060902/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32185111
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8718
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author Manjarrez, Javier
Macías Garcia, Constantino
Drummond, Hugh
author_facet Manjarrez, Javier
Macías Garcia, Constantino
Drummond, Hugh
author_sort Manjarrez, Javier
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-70609022020-03-17 Congenital feeding response to a novel prey in a Mexican gartersnake Manjarrez, Javier Macías Garcia, Constantino Drummond, Hugh PeerJ Animal Behavior 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. PeerJ Inc. 2020-03-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7060902/ /pubmed/32185111 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8718 Text en ©2020 Manjarrez et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , 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) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Animal Behavior
Manjarrez, Javier
Macías Garcia, Constantino
Drummond, Hugh
Congenital feeding response to a novel prey in a Mexican gartersnake
title Congenital feeding response to a novel prey in a Mexican gartersnake
title_full Congenital feeding response to a novel prey in a Mexican gartersnake
title_fullStr Congenital feeding response to a novel prey in a Mexican gartersnake
title_full_unstemmed Congenital feeding response to a novel prey in a Mexican gartersnake
title_short Congenital feeding response to a novel prey in a Mexican gartersnake
title_sort congenital feeding response to a novel prey in a mexican gartersnake
topic Animal Behavior
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7060902/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32185111
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8718
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