What Makes a Hot-Spring Habitat “Hot” for the Hot-Spring Snake: Distributional Data and Niche Modelling for the Genus Thermophis (Serpentes, Colubridae)

Knowledge about species’ distributions is central to diverse applications in ecology, biogeography, and conservation science. Hot-spring snakes of the genus Thermophis share a distribution restricted to geothermal sites at the Tibetan Plateau (T. baileyi) and in the Hengduan Mountains (T. zhaoermii,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Diversity (Basel) 2021-07, Vol.13 (7), p.325
Main Authors: Hofmann, Sylvia, Fritzsche, Peter, Dorge, Tsering, Miehe, Georg, Nothnagel, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bioclimatology
Biodiversity
Biogeography
Conservation
Conservation biology
Current distribution
distribution
Ecosystems
Geographical distribution
habitat suitability
Habitats
Hengduan Mountains
Hot springs
hot-spring keel-back
Land cover
Mountains
Polls & surveys
Precipitation
Principal components analysis
Qinghai-Tibet-Plateau
River networks
Snakes
Species
Spring
Spring (season)
Spring water
Water springs
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Summary:Knowledge about species’ distributions is central to diverse applications in ecology, biogeography, and conservation science. Hot-spring snakes of the genus Thermophis share a distribution restricted to geothermal sites at the Tibetan Plateau (T. baileyi) and in the Hengduan Mountains (T. zhaoermii, T. shangrila). Although the suture zones of these regions are widely covered with hot springs, Thermophis populations are restricted to only a few of these habitats. Here, we use bioclimatic, topographic, and land cover data to model the potential distribution of the genus. Moreover, using logistic regression on field survey data of T. zhaoermii, we test whether hot-spring water parameters and landscape features correlate with the species’ presence or absence. Hot springs with temperatures between 45 and 100 °C and winter precipitation showed the most predictive power. At small scale, our data support the relevance of the hot-spring temperature on the species’ occurrence and indicate that also the along-valley distance from the hot-spring site to the major river might influence the distribution of Thermophis species. Our findings contribute to better understand factors shaping the current distribution of the genus and will aid in setting priorities in applied conservation biology for the hot-spring snakes.
ISSN:1424-2818
1424-2818
DOI:10.3390/d13070325