Climatic and geographic predictors of life history variation in Eastern Massasauga (Sistrurus catenatus): A range-wide synthesis.

ABSTRACT: Elucidating how life history traits vary geographically is important to understanding variation in population dynamics. Because many aspects of ectotherm life history are climate-dependent, geographic variation in climate is expected to have a large impact on population dynamics through effects on annual survival, body size, growth rate, age at first reproduction, size-fecundity relationship, and reproductive frequency. The Eastern Massasauga (Sistrurus catenatus) is a small, imperiled North American rattlesnake with a distribution centered on the Great Lakes region, where lake effects strongly influence local conditions. To address Eastern Massasauga life history data gaps, we compiled data from 47 study sites representing 38 counties across the range. We used multimodel inference and gen

SUBMITTER: Hileman ET 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5308788 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature