Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve

11 Apr, 01 PM - 15 Apr, 10 AM

I will collect tissue samples from 20 Common Garter Snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis) and 20 California Newts (Taricha torosa) in order to estimate population structure and gene flow with neighboring populations. Animals will be captured from patches of suitable habitat in the vicinity of Big Creek. Snakes will be captured by hand. I will use scissors to remove a 3 mm tail clip for genetic analysis. Newts will be captured by hand and dip net. For each newt, I will use a human skin biopsy punch (Acupunche Acuderm, Inc.) to remove a 5 mm diameter skin punch from the dorsum (Hanifin et al. 2004). This procedure normally does not involve bleeding or other obvious trauma, and the skin punches heal quickly with regenerated skin. Skin punches will be used for both the genetic analysis and to assay for TTX toxicity. I will also opportunistically sample tissue from road kill animals. Once I have collected tissue, each animal will be released back to the same location it was captured. However, 10 Th. sirtalis will be retained for the TTX assay. A minimum of 10 snakes is required to obtain accurate population estimates of TTX resistance (Brodie et al. 2002). These snakes will be transported to Edmund Brodie Jr. at Utah State University. Here, snakes will be housed in 10-gallon aquaria and fed fish ad libitum. Once assayed for TTX, the snakes will then be entered into the University of Virginia collection of reptiles and amphibians, with long-term deposition in the University of Texas Arlington Collection of Vertebrates (IACUC protocol #3567).

Visit #45255 @Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve

Approved

Under Project # 32994 | Research

The conflicting effects of gene flow in a geographic mosaic of predator-prey coevolution

graduate_student - University of Virginia

Reservation Members(s)

Michael Hague Apr 11 - 15, 2016 (5 days)

Reserve Resources(s) | Create Invoice

Redwood Camp 1 Apr 11 - 15, 2016