Invasive snake causes massive reduction of all endemic herpetofauna on Gran Canaria.

ABSTRACT: Invasive snakes represent a serious threat to island biodiversity, being responsible for far-reaching impacts that are noticeably understudied, particularly regarding native reptiles. We analysed the impact of the invasive California kingsnake, Lampropeltis californiae-recently introduced in the Canary Islands-on the abundance of all endemic herpetofauna of the island of Gran Canaria. We quantified the density in invaded and uninvaded sites for the Gran Canaria giant lizard, Gallotia stehlini, the Gran Canaria skink, Chalcides sexlineatus, and Boettger's wall gecko, Tarentola boettgeri. We used spatially explicit capture-recapture and distance-sampling methods for G. stehlini and active searches under rocks for the abundance of the other two reptiles. The

SUBMITTER: Piquet JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8651408 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature