Meeting Abstract
The use of captive breeding for the purpose of supplementing imperiled species is commonplace throughout herpetology, and continues to grow with each decade. For snakes, many of these programs take the form of “headstarting” programs. Individuals are born in captivity, and raised for as many as three years before reintroduction into the wild. The focus of these programs are maintaining genetic diversity in their captive populations, and ensuring that individuals survive to reproduce in the wild. However, it is not clear how the captive rearing environment may play a role in the behavior and morphology of these individuals, and how changes in the behavior and morphology influence the success of individuals upon reintroduction. Examination of feeding behavior across 10 different species of snake reveals that species respond differently to captive care protocols, in terms of strike performance, sensory biology, and prey-handling behaviors. Experimental manipulation of diet in newborn garter snakes, Thamnophis sirtalis, reveal that while total mass of food consumed ultimately drives body size, the size of individual food items can drive differences in head shape during the earliest stages of ontogeny. Changes in head shape may impact the ability of individuals to exploit resources later in life, and help drive the likelihood of survival. The additive effects of changes to both behavior and morphology from the native population is likely to alter the likelihood of success of the individual, and the reintroduction program. Taking steps to prevent these changes may increase that likelihood of success.
