Empirical Tests of Biased Body Size Distributions in Aquatic Snake Captures

Ecologists often rely on a suite of demographic parameters—such as age structure, body size distributions, population density, and sex ratios—to understand life history patterns, population dynamics, and community structure of snakes. Unfortunately, in many cases little consideration is given to how sampling techniques may influence the outcome of demographic studies. Herein, we use a combination of field capture techniques, an extensive database of field-captured snakes, and laboratory and field experiments to evaluate how capture methods may influence demographic assessments of several North American semi-aquatic snake species, including Agkistrodon piscivorus, Farancia abacura, Nerodia fasciata, N. floridana, N. rhombifer, N. taxispilota, Regina rigida, Seminatrix pygaea, and Thamnophis sauritus. We found that commercially available aquatic funnel traps (i.e., minnow traps) generally yielded biased assessments of population demography, but that the nature and magnitude of these biases varied predictably by species and trap type. Experimental manipulations of funnel opening diameter in aquatic funnel traps demonstrated that such modifications allowed for capture of larger snakes but that the size of funnel opening necessary to capture the largest individuals varied between species. Additionally, we found differences between snake species in their ability to escape from different types of traps at birth, suggesting that escape of neonates through trap mesh can lead to the lack of small snakes often observed in field samples. Overall, our results demonstrate that capture methods may bias assessments of snake population demography, but that careful design of sampling methodology, with consideration of potential biases, can yield meaningful data on snake biology.