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. ,探究物种如何在其分布的纬度极限区域存活，对于物种保护工作具有重要研究价值，尤其在全球变暖背景下，加之捕食者与猎物种群的分布均被预测将发生范围变迁。物种对高纬度环境与未来气候变化的适应能力，既会受到与环境的直接相互作用（例如耐热性改变）的影响，也会通过与猎物、捕食者的生物间相互作用受到间接影响。挪威境内的滑蛇（Coronella austriaca）为分布极限处的生物相互作用研究提供了极具价值的案例模型。相较于低纬度南部区域，挪威境内的滑蛇（Coronella austriaca）潜在猎物物种数量更少。为探究其分布极限处的营养级适应策略，我们采用宏条形码（metabarcoding）测序技术，对采自挪威南部阿格德尔地区的17件馆藏滑蛇（Coronella austriaca）标本的胃容物样本进行猎物物种鉴定。本次研究共检出8种猎物，其中4种为爬行动物，4种为哺乳动物。普通田鼠（Microtus，原文标注未完整）# 分布北限处的食性适应：滑蛇（Coronella austriaca）在挪威的取食对象为何？胃容物宏条形码测序与粪便目视分析 本数据集概述了每份样本中各猎物物种或猎物类群的读段（reads）数量，并基于17份滑蛇个体样本的总读段数从高到低完成排序。