Grass snakes (Natrix natrix) in Sweden decline together with their anthropogenic nesting-environments
In this paper we show that the number of grass snake (Natrix natrix L.) specimens deposited in Swedish museum collections has declined in the last eighty years, and that this is correlated with a dramatic national decrease in the number of livestock holdings. These results support
the hypothesis that Swedish grass snakes are declining and that this may be linked to a loss of important nesting-environments provided by open manure heaps in small-scale farming. Our study suggests that information obtained from museum databases potentially may be used to explore population
trends for snakes and other reptiles.
Keywords: CONSERVATION; DATABASES; MANURE HEAPS; MUSEUM MINING; OVIPARITY
Document Type: Short Communication
Publication date: 01 July 2012
- The Herpetological Journal is an international scientific journal that publishes papers on the natural history of amphibians and reptiles. Experimental, observational and theoretical studies are published along with reviews and book reviews. Faunistic lists, letters and results of general surveys are not published unless they shed light on herpetological problems of wider significance.
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