Stress physiology and anti-predator behaviour in urban Northwestern Gartersnakes (Thamnophis ordinoides)
| dc.contributor.author | Bell, Katherine | |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | Gregory, Patrick T. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2014-01-02T19:49:47Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2014-01-02T19:49:47Z | |
| dc.date.copyright | 2013 | en_US |
| dc.date.issued | 2014-01-02 | |
| dc.degree.department | Department of Biology | |
| dc.degree.level | Master of Science M.Sc. | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | Over 50% of the world’s human population resides in urban centres, and this is expected to increase as the global human population grows and people migrate from non-urban to urban centres. Concentrated in these urban areas are anthropogenic disturbances that impose additional challenges on wildlife compared to their non-urban counterparts. These challenges can be stress provoking. Through the release of corticosterone (CORT) reptiles can adapt to these stressors, physiologically and behaviourally, both in the short- and long-term. To investigate the relationships between stress activation and defensive tactics in wild urban Northwestern Gartersnakes (Thamnophis ordinoides) I conducted visual encounter surveys, along edge-focused transects, following a semi-constrained random sampling method. I sampled snakes at five sites, each with a different level of anthropogenic disturbance, in the Greater Victoria Area, BC. I sampled blood, observed anti-predator behaviour, and collected data on characteristics of snakes. The most disturbed site (with the most people, pets, and natural predators) also had the most snakes: those snakes also had highest H:L values (a proxy of CORT) in their blood compared to the other populations. Nevertheless, none of the snakes had H:L values that indicated chronic stress. Stress physiology was not correlated with anti-predator behaviour. More important to anti-predator behaviour was the size, sex/reproductive condition, and cloacal temperature of snakes. Although anthropogenic development can reduce habitat quality for some reptiles, Northwestern Gartersnakes coexist with recreationists at many sites in the District of Saanich. A multi-disciplinary approach is of paramount importance to understand the full effect of anthropogenic influences on wildlife. | en_US |
| dc.description.proquestcode | 0433 | en_US |
| dc.description.proquestcode | 0329 | en_US |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Graduate | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1828/5122 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.rights.temp | Available to the World Wide Web | en_US |
| dc.subject | Urban ecology | en_US |
| dc.subject | Chronic stress | en_US |
| dc.subject | Leukocyte profile | en_US |
| dc.subject | Gartersnake | en_US |
| dc.subject | Anthropogenic disturbance | en_US |
| dc.subject | Defensive behaviour | en_US |
| dc.title | Stress physiology and anti-predator behaviour in urban Northwestern Gartersnakes (Thamnophis ordinoides) | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |