Dietary adaptations along the Northern limit of distribution: What does the smooth snake (Coronella austriaca) eat in Norway? Metabarcoding of stomach content and visual analysis of faeces

Understanding how species survive at their poleward limits of distribution is of interest in species conservation, particularly in light of global warming and predictions of shifting distributions of both predators and prey species. How species adapt to high latitudes and to future climate changes will be impacted both by direct interactions with the environment, such as changing heat tolerances, but also indirectly through biotic interactions with prey and predators. The smooth snake (Coronella austriaca) in Norway provides an interesting case study of biotic interactions at range limits. The number of potential prey species of C. austriaca is lower in Norway than in southern latitudes. To investigate trophic adaptations at its poleward range limit we used metabar-coding sequencing to identify prey species in stomach samples of a museum collection of 17 preserved C. austriaca from Agder in Southern Norway. Eight prey species were detected, four reptiles and four mammals. Field vole (Mi..., , , # Dietary adaptations along the Northern limit of distribution: What does the smooth snake (Coronella austriaca) eat in Norway? Metabarcoding of stomach content and visual analysis of faeces

An overview of the number of reads per prey species or prey group in each of the samples, sorted from largest to smallest number of reads across the 17 individual smooth snake samples.
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