Meeting Abstract
Prescribed fire is a landscape disturbance that alters the physical and thermal characteristics of a habitat. Changes to the thermal landscape may benefit ectothermic organisms as they are able to maintain elevated body temperatures that may coincide with preferred body temperatures. However, changes to the physical characteristics of a burnt landscape may affect other ecological aspects including risk of predation and foraging efficiency. It was the objective of this project to determine if prescribed fire affected the thermal landscape and thermoregulatory behaviors of an ectothermic species, the timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus), and to determine if physical changes to the habitat affected the behaviors of this organism. I radio-tracked C. horridus for two years before and two years after a prescribed fire in central Pennsylvania. I recorded behaviors, movement rates, home range sizes, and body temperatures of each snake throughout the project. Biophysical models were placed in burnt and unburnt treatments each year to measure operative temperatures. I found that burnt landscapes provided warmer operative temperatures. Radio-tracked C. horridus also maintained warmer body temperatures when occupying burnt habitat. However, foraging behaviors were solely restricted to unburnt habitat. Trapping efforts suggest no change in small mammal abundance in burnt and unburnt landscapes. Rather, data from a concurrent scent-trailing study suggest that C. horridus may not be able to detect chemical stimuli on burnt substrate. Thus, even though small mammals were present in the burnt treatment, C. horridus may not have been able to detect suitable ambush sites.
