Ectothermy and the macroecology of home range scaling in snakes

Aim: A central question in ecology has been that of why animal home ranges scale more steeply with body size than do metabolic rates. Yet, the generality of this notion has scarcely been tested in non-model species like ectotherms, which have lower metabolic requirements than endotherms and which may therefore have different home range area requirements. Our aim was to examine how home range area scales with body size in snakes and to shed light on how other factors may shape home range area requirements in an understudied group of ectotherms.

Location: Global

Time Period: 1984–2018

Major Taxon Studied: Serpents

Methods: We compiled and analyzed a dataset of snake home ranges from the literature to evaluate how body size, sex, climate, foraging ecology, and biogeographic factors shape home range area requirements.

Results: Home range area scaled more gradually with body size in snakes (log-linear slope of simple linear regression 0.72 with 95% Confidence Interval 0.48–0.9...