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TRC's Rattlesnake Conservation Grants: 2024 Awardee Progress
Each year, TRC earmarks a portion of its fundraising to award grants to projects which have on-the-ground conservation benefit for rattlesnakes. We pride ourselves as one of the only organizations which specifically offers grants that focus on rattlesnakes and other venomous snake species. Since 2020, we've funded projects impacting a total of 8 species of rattlesnake from the Florida Peninsula to the slopes of New York, the desert Southwest and even the mountains of Northeast Brazil. In this blog post, I'd like to take the time to highlight some of the amazing accomplishments by our award grant recipients in the past year!
Dr. Dominic DeSantis: Effects of roadways on seasonal movement strategies and mate location success in an imperiled pit viper (Crotalus horridus)
Dr. DeSantis and his team seek to study how non-lethal road interactions affect the movement, mate-searching behavior, and success in finding mates of Timber Rattlesnakes (C. horridus) in Georgia's Piedmont region. They examine not just how roads in general impact their behavior, but also how factors like traffic volume and road type (paved vs. unpaved) play a role. To do this, they make use of a combo of radio telemetry and accelerometry (recording the acceleration of the snake) to better understand how, when - and hopefully - why, these large-bodied snakes interact with roads. They hope that findings will help wildlife managers create strategies to reduce the negative effects of roads on wild Timber Rattlesnake populations.
As of writing, Dr DeSantis and his team have recently submitted the first of two manuscripts supported by TRC's Conservation Grants to the scientific journal Ecology and Evolution. The first paper, titled “Effects of road interactions on mate searching movements and mate location success in an imperiled pit viper (Crotalus horridus).” is expected to be published by mid-2025. They are also working on a follow-up paper, which uses additional field data to explore the role of individual behavioral types (active vs. inactive) in risk-taking behaviors, particularly in road interactions. Basically, they are now looking into ways to predict which individuals are more likely to interact with a road, and the fitness consequences of these behaviors. Preliminary results are promising, but more data is needed to confidently state the results of this project.
David Rosenbaum: Abundance, occupancy, and phenology of Crotalus horridus (Timber Rattlesnake) at its northern range periphery
David Rosenbaum is a Research Support Specialist at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry's (SUNY-ESF) Adirondack Ecological Center, where one of the research projects he works on is investigating populations of the Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) at the species’ northern range edge in New York. A primary focus of this research is to develop a method of estimating overwintering site abundances and detection probability for rattlesnakes based on non-invasive visual encounter surveys
In Spring of 2024, he conducted 34 talus slope surveys across 55.7 km (that's about 34 and a half miles). Out of those 34 surveys, he only failed to detect Timber Rattlesnakes during just 4 surveys. During the Spring season, he observed 93 encounters, though some were repeated sightings of the same individual snakes. Furthermore, David was able to detect Timber Rattlesnakes at 3 sites which were unknown to the New York Natural Heritage Program, in effect "discovering" these new critical Timber Rattlesnake dens. Additional data collected in the spring also found that approximately 18% (just under one-fifth) of observed snakes suffered from visible SFD symptoms, a correlation between melanistic individuals and elevation, and the frequency of emergence across age classes.
In Autumn of 2024, David was able to deploy cameras at 6 den sites to collect additional data on subjects including phenology (periodic life events), diel activity (activity throughout the day), and approximate immigration rates for the den sites. He plans to use this information for models to estimate abundance of Timber Rattlesnakes at select sites.
Matthew Gacheny: Thermal and habitat effects on Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake reproductive ecology in the southeastern U.S.
Matthew Gacheny is a master’s student in the Herpetology and Applied Conservation Lab at Marshall University. As part of his thesis project, Matthew is investigating how microhabitat thermal profiles (warmer vs cooler) influence reproductive female Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnakes’ (Crotalus adamateus) site selection at the northern portion of the species’ range in the Carolinas. In his research on Eastern Diamondbacks, he aimed to explore how female snakes select their microhabitats during reproductive phases, specifically focusing on the effects of temperature and habitat structure on their choices.
So far, this study has found that adult female EDBs actively regulate their body temperature, rather than conforming to their surroundings, in the critical periods of vitellogenesis (yolk protein development) and gestation (pregnancy). Habitat models showed that these snakes require a variety of thermal conditions, such as cool surface temperatures and warm soil during gestation, and warm surface temperatures with cool soil during overwintering. Additionally, they discovered that overwintering females preferred sites with more coarse woody debris, though other habitat features didn’t show strong correlations. Interestingly, they could not identify specific habitat preferences for reproductive females compared to non-reproductive females during overwintering. These findings suggest that temperature regulation is a key strategy for females to manage the energetic costs of reproduction across seasons.
These projects were funded in part with money raised during our first-ever Battle of the Buzztales during GB4B23, where Team Horridus rode to victory! If you have a species, you feel needs some crowd funding, keep your eyes peeled for dates and announcements about GB4B25 to get your team ready for this September!
With the deadline for our research grant period fast approaching, be sure to check out and share our Rattlesnake Conservation Grants page today!