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Dryad

Data from: Contrasting patterns of gene flow for Amazonian snakes that actively forage and those that wait in ambush

Cite this dataset

de Fraga, Rafael et al. (2017). Data from: Contrasting patterns of gene flow for Amazonian snakes that actively forage and those that wait in ambush [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.mq4p7

Abstract

Knowledge of genetic structure, geographic distance and environmental heterogeneity can be used to identify environmental features and natural history traits that influence dispersal and gene flow. Foraging mode is a trait that might predict dispersal capacity in snakes, because actively foragers typically have greater movement rates than ambush predators. Here we test the hypothesis that two actively foraging snakes have higher levels of gene flow than two ambush predators. We evaluated these four co-distributed species of snakes in the Brazilian Amazon. Snakes were sampled along an 880km transect from the central to the southwest of the Amazon basin, which covered a mosaic of vegetation types and seasonal differences in climate. We analyzed thousands of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) to compare patterns of neutral gene flow based on isolation by geographic distance (IBD) and environmental resistance (IBR). We show that IBD and IBR were only evident in ambush predators, implying lower levels of dispersal than the active foragers. Therefore, gene flow was high enough in the active foragers analyzed here to prevent any build-up of spatial genotypic structure with respect to geographic distance and environmental heterogeneity.

Usage notes

Location

Central to Southwestern Brazilian Amazon