Are Diet Preferences Associated to Skulls Shape Diversification in Xenodontine Snakes?

PLoS One. 2016 Feb 17;11(2):e0148375. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0148375. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Snakes are a highly successful group of vertebrates, within great diversity in habitat, diet, and morphology. The unique adaptations for the snake skull for ingesting large prey in more primitive macrostomatan snakes have been well documented. However, subsequent diversification in snake cranial shape in relation to dietary specializations has rarely been studied (e.g. piscivory in natricine snakes). Here we examine a large clade of snakes with a broad spectrum of diet preferences to test if diet preferences are correlated to shape variation in snake skulls. Specifically, we studied the Xenodontinae snakes, a speciose clade of South American snakes, which show a broad range of diets including invertebrates, amphibians, snakes, lizards, and small mammals. We characterized the skull morphology of 19 species of xenodontine snakes using geometric morphometric techniques, and used phylogenetic comparative methods to test the association between diet and skull morphology. Using phylogenetic partial least squares analysis (PPLS) we show that skull morphology is highly associated with diet preferences in xenodontine snakes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Anatomic Landmarks
  • Animals
  • Choice Behavior*
  • Colubridae / anatomy & histology*
  • Diet*
  • Phylogeny
  • Predatory Behavior
  • Skull / anatomy & histology*

Grants and funding

JK was funded from Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (grant number: 2011/17070-6) as a post-doctoral fellow; http://www.fapesp.br/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.