Factors Influencing Activity and Detection of Species in a Cross Timbers Snake Assemblage

Abstract

The Cross Timbers of North America is an ecotone between the eastern deciduous forests and central grasslands and exhibits a diverse composite snake fauna. Over a 3-yr period, we performed repeated nocturnal road surveys of snakes across three transects in Wise County, Texas, and evaluated species composition, relative abundances, vehicular mortality, detection probability, and the influence of environmental variables on snake activity. Sixteen taxa and 406 observations were recorded over 250 surveys, and the three most frequently encountered species had detection probabilities of approximately 0.20: Pantherophis obsoletus, Agkistrodon laticinctus, and Nerodia rhombifer. Only the two species of Agkistrodon present at our study area showed significant differences in count frequencies across the three transects. Covariate effects on overall snake activity were subtle, with barometric pressure, ordinal date, and ambient temperature better explaining variation in combined snake counts than humidity, wind speed, or lunar phase. Furthermore, peak snake activity corresponded closely to the timing of peak warm-season precipitation in the study area, suggesting that snake activity coincides with rainfall periodicity in the Cross Timbers region. However, results of site-occupancy models indicated that covariate effects were different across species, and that several common species did not show clear responses to any of the survey covariates.