Grass snakes (Natrix natrix) in Sweden decline together with their anthropogenic nesting-environments

Abstract

In this paper we show that the number of grass snake (Narrix 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

Published in

Herpetological Journal
2012, Volume: 22, number: 3, pages: 199-202

SLU Authors

• Kärvemo, Simon

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology


Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/40581