Colin Strine

Dickinson State University · Department of Natural Sciences

The Big-Eyed Green Pit Viper (Trimeresurus macrops; Kramer, 1977) is a venomous snake species endemic to Southeast Asia. Although we have some knowledge of the systematics and toxicology of T. macrops, little is known about the spatial ecology of this species. From May 2013 to February 2014, we used radio-telemetry to determine home-range sizes of...

Animal movement, expressed through home ranges, can offer insights into spatial and habitat requirements. 12 However, home range estimation methods vary, directly impacting conclusions. Recent technological 13 advances in animal tracking (GPS and satellite tags), have enabled new methods for home range estimation, 14 but so far have primarily targe...

Across many scientific disciplines, direct replication efforts and meta-analyses have fuelled concerns on the replicability of findings. Ecology and evolution are similarly affected. Investigations into the causes of this lack of replicability have implicated a suite of research practices linked to incentive in the current publishing system. Other...

Wildlife trade is a key driver of the biodiversity crisis. Unregulated, or under-regulated wildlife trade can lead to unsustainable exploitation of wild populations. International efforts to regulate wildlife mostly miss ‘lower-value’ species, such as those imported as pets, resulting in limited knowledge of trade in groups like reptiles. Here we g...

Reptiles are the most species-rich terrestrial vertebrate group with a broad diversity of life history traits. Biotelemetry is an essential methodology for studying reptiles as it compensates for several limitations when studying their natural history. We evaluated trends in terrestrial reptile spatial ecology studies focusing upon quantifying home...

Several conservation assessments have proposed that the Kanchanaburi pit viper Trimeresurus kanburiensis is threatened with extinction due to limited distribution, few documented sites and the collection of mature individuals for the international pet trade. No previous study has evaluated these threats comprehensively, nor investigated the natural...

The unsustainable use of wildlife is a primary driver of global biodiversity loss. No comprehensive global dataset exists on what species are in trade, their geographic origins, and trade's ultimate impacts, which limits our ability to sustainably manage trade. The United States (US) is one of the world's largest importers of wildlife, trade data b...

The response of venomous snakes to anthropogenic landscape disturbance remains scarcely studied in tropical regions. Green pit vipers are among the most diverse venomous snakes in the Southeast Asian tropics and bite the highest number of people of any group of venomous snakes where they are found, yet conservation and snakebite management efforts...

Sexual dimorphism is expressed in many taxa as a form of resource partitioning and as a response to unique challenges faced by male and female organisms. We investigated this phenomenon for an arboreal green pit viper species, Trimeresurus macrops, previously suggested to display obvious sexual dimorphism. We evaluated seven external characters and...

Technology has the potential to assist and directly address ecological topics. Our study compared efficiency and efficacy of foreground‐detection computer vision and manual review methods for understanding behavior, natural history, and ecology of green pit vipers. Between 2015 and 2020 at the Sakaerat Biosphere Reserve in Thailand, 18,871 scans (p...

Home range analysis is a standard and fundamental concept in ecology used to describe animal space use over their lifetimes. Connecting home range sizes with animal characteristics, location, and habitat can be used to inform conservation decisions. Reptiles are frequently lacking robust estimates of space use, particularly reptiles in tropical reg...

Wildlife trade is a major driver of biodiversity loss, yet whilst the impacts of trade in some species are relatively well-known, some taxa, such as many invertebrates are often overlooked. Here we explore global patterns of trade in the arachnids, and detected 1,264 species from 66 families and 371 genera in trade. Trade in these groups exceeds mi...

Animal movement can impact human–wildlife conflict by influencing encounter and detection rates. We assess the movement and space use of the highly venomous and medically important Malayan krait (Bungarus candidus) on a suburban university campus. We radio-tracked 14 kraits for an average of 114 days (min: 19, max: 218), during which we located ind...

Global road networks continue to expand, and the wildlife responses to these landscape‐level changes need to be understood to advise long‐term management decisions. Roads have high mortality risk to snakes because snakes typically move slowly and can be intentionally targeted by drivers. We investigated how radio‐tracked King Cobras (Ophiophagus ha...

The clouded monitor lizard (Varanus nebulosus), is a semi arboreal lizard widely distributed throughout much of South and Southeast Asia. Despite its wide distribution there is almost nothing known about the ecology of this species. During the course of an 11-month radio telemetry study, in a reserve with a tropical savannah climate (Köppen Aw), we...

Wildlife trade is a major driver of biodiversity loss. Here we explore global patterns of trade in the arachnids. Trade in these groups exceeds millions of individuals, with 67% coming directly from the wild, and up to 99% of individuals in some genera. Up to 50% of species in popular taxa such as tarantulas are in trade, including 25% of species d...

Predator-prey interactions are fundamental drivers of population dynamics. Studying both predator and prey species simultaneously yields particularly useful insights into these complex interactions. Despite being significant, widespread avian nest predators, Southeast Asian snakes are rarely simultaneously studied in relation to avian prey. The Gre...

Animal movement can impact human-wildlife conflict through a variety of features: increased movement can lead to greater chance of encounter, remaining still can lead to greater or lesser detection, and activity can modulate their impact on humans. Here we assess the movement and space use of the highly venomous and medically important Malayan krai...

Home range is a fundamental concept in ecology used to describe animal space use over their lifetimes. Numerous studies use a variety of metrics to quantify home range; however, most of these treat spatial data inappropriately. Here we re-analyse a publicly available data-set, collected by the authors of this study, using a relatively novel and app...

Global road networks continue to expand, and the wildlife responses to these landscape-level changes need to be understood to advise long-term management decisions. Roads have high mortality risk to snakes because snakes typically move slowly and can be intentionally targeted by drivers. We investigated how radio-tracked King Cobras ( Ophiophagus h...

As the biodiversity crisis continues, we must redouble efforts to understand and curb pressures pushing species closer to extinction. One major driver is the unsustainable trade of wildlife. Trade in internationally regulated species gains the most research attention, but this only accounts for a minority of traded species and we risk failing to ap...

To prevent population extirpations, we need to understand a species’ requirements, especially for critically endangered species inhabiting biodiversity hotspots. Studying animal movement provides necessary insights and gauges protected area effectiveness. Southeast Asian protected areas are becoming isolated, stressing the need for maintaining popu...

As the biodiversity crisis continues, we must redouble efforts to understand and curb pressures pushing species closer to extinction. One major driver is the unsustainable trade of wildlife. Trade in internationally regulated species gains the most research attention, but this only accounts for a minority of traded species and we risk failing to ap...

Animal movement and resource use are tightly linked. Investigating these links to understand how animals use space and select habitats is especially relevant in areas affected by habitat fragmentation and agricultural conversion. We set out to explore the space use and habitat selection of Burmese pythons (Python bivittatus) in a heterogenous, agri...

1. Snakebite, which was reclassified as a neglected tropical disease by the World Health Organization in 2017, afflicts at least 1.8-2.7 million people worldwide each year. Understanding the habits of medically significant snakes can help us better construct preventative measures which reduce snake-human conflicts and snakebite. 2. As a case study...

Predator-prey interactions are fundamental drivers of population dynamics, yet rarely are both predator and prey species simultaneously studied. Despite being significant, widespread avian nest predators, research on the ecology of Southeast Asian snakes in relation to birds remains scarce. The green cat snake (Boiga cyanea) is a primary nest preda...

Across many scientific disciplines, direct replication efforts and meta-analyses have fuelled concerns on the replicability of findings. Ecology and evolution are similarly affected. Investigations into the causes of this lack of replicability have implicated a suite of research practices linked to incentives in the current publishing system. Other...

Identifying individuals with natural markings is increasing in popularity to non-invasively support population studies. However, applying natural variation among individuals requires careful evaluation among target species, snakes for example have little validation of such methods. Here we introduce a mark-free identification method for King Cobras...

Zoonosis-based epidemics are inevitable unless we revisit our relationship with the natural world, protect habitats and regulate wildlife trade, including live animals and non-sustenance products. To prevent future zoonoses, governments must establish effective legislation addressing wildlife trade, protection of habitats and reduction of the wildl...

Reptiles are the most species-rich vertebrate group with a broad diversity of life history traits. Biotelemetry is an essential methodology for reptiles as it compensates for several limitations when studying their natural history. We evaluated trends in reptile spatial ecology studies focusing upon quantifying home ranges for the past twenty years...

Background: Animal movement expressed through home ranges or space-use can offer insights into spatial and habitat requirements. However, different classes of estimation methods are currently instinctively applied to answer home range, space-use or movement-based research questions regardless of their widely varying outputs, directly impacting conc...

Animal movement and resource use are tightly linked. Investigating these links to understand how animals utilize space and select habitats is especially relevant in areas that have been affected by habitat fragmentation and agricultural conversion. We set out to explore the space use and habitat selection of Burmese pythons ( Python bivittatus ) in...

Background Studying animal movement provides insights into how animals react to land-use changes. As agriculture expands, we can use animal movement to examine how animals change their behaviour in response. Recent reviews show a tendency for mammalian species to reduce movements in response to increased human landscape modification, but reptile mo...

Saltwater crocodiles Crocodylus porosus are listed as critically endangered in Myanmar because they are limited to Meinmahlakyun Wildlife Sanctuary (MKWS) in the Ayeyarwady delta region. Little contemporary data exists on their distribution and population size which hinders effective conservation and management. We conducted standardized spotlight...

To prevent population extirpations we need to understand species’ requirements, especially for critically endangered species inhabiting biodiversity hotspots. Studying animal movement can provide insights into such requirements and gauge protected area effectiveness. Southeast Asian protected areas are becoming isolated; thus, we need to ensure exi...

The king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) is an iconic elapid snake species distributed throughout tropical forests from southwestern India to the Philippines, and southern China to the Indonesian archipelago (Stuart et al., 2012). As the generic epithet suggests, king cobras are thought to specialize on snake prey. Documenting feeding habits of snakes i...

Studying animal movement provides insights into how animals react to land-use changes, specifically how animals can change their behaviour in agricultural areas. Recent reviews show a tendency for species to reduce movements in response to increased human landscape modification, but the study of movement has not been extensively explored in reptile...

We present observations of social interactions of wild adult big-eyed pit vipers (Trimeresurus (Cryptelytrops) macrops at ambush sites within the Sakaerat Biosphere Reserve (SBR) in northeast Thailand. While social interaction between green pit vipers may be rare (272 minutes of 34, 226 minutes for the T. macrops observed in our study), consequence...

An understanding of the spatial ecology of species living in and around human-dominated habitats is needed to develop conflict mitigation strategies and predict how organisms cope with ongoing anthropogenic habitat alteration. Here we present the results of a six-month telemetry study in Thailand of the banded krait (Bungarus fasciatus), a venomous...

A species' distribution provides fundamental information on: climatic niche, biogeography, and conservation status. Species distribution models often use occurrence records from biodiversity databases, subject to spatial and taxonomic biases. Deficiencies in occurrence data can lead to incomplete species distribution estimates. We can incorporate o...

We used telemetry to track the movements of the females of two sympatric green pit viper species, Cryptelytrops macrops and Viridovipera vogeli, in north-eastern Thailand. This has generated information on their home ranges, lengths of displacements, and vertical niche partitioning. Five female vipers were tracked simultaneously within the same gen...

Protected areas are often promoted as an important solution to preserving biodiversity. However, permeable edges can undermine the effectiveness of preserves because animals may move into adjacent human-dominated unprotected areas. We investigated attitudes toward, and sources of mortality of, a far-ranging apex predator, the king cobra (Ophiophagu...

With ongoing rapid anthropogenic deforestation and habitat degradation, it is critical that we understand the role of human-disturbed areas in conserving the biodiversity of the world. Despite intensive deforestation in Southeast Asia, there are few studies investigating faunal communities in human-modified landscapes there. We assessed herpetofaun...

The Boiga genus is broadly distributed throughout tropical Asia and Australia, however, the natural history of most species remains understudied. Laboratory and fecal observations of Guangxi cat snakes (Boiga guangxiensis) suggest predation upon birds, lizards and small mammals. However, natural prey items and feeding behaviors in the field have no...

Home range estimators are a critical component for understanding animal spatial ecology. The choice of home range estimator in spatial ecology studies can significantly influence management and conservation actions, as different methods lead to vastly different interpretations of movement patterns, habitat selection, as well as home range requireme...

Results of the best Generalized linear mixed effects models (GLMM), i.e. lowest AIC, testing for variation in motion variance (σ2m) with different environmental variables. Significant values are labeled with an asterisk (*). (DOCX)

Seasonal variation in home range for OPHA1. Home range size estimations for the 99% contour using a dBBMM and BBMM approach compared to sizes for KDE using a range of bandwidths in each season. (DOCX)

Seasonal variation in home range for OPHA2. Home range size estimations for the 99% contour using a dBBMM and BBMM approach compared to sizes for KDE using a range of bandwidths in each season. (DOCX)

Results of the best Generalized linear mixed effects models (GLMM), i.e. lowest AIC, for OPHA1 and OPHA2 testing for variation in motion variance (σ2m) in different habitats and seasons. Significant values are labeled with an asterisk (*). (DOCX)

A species’ spatial ecology has direct implications for that species’ conservation. Far-ranging species may be more difficult to conserve because their movements increase their chances of encountering humans. The movements can take them out of protected areas, which is especially risky for species that are routinely persecuted. The king cobra (Ophio...

Brief description of an observation of survival behavior of a white- lipped viper (Cryptelytrops albolabris) during a fire event in dry dipterocarp habitat in rural north- east Thailand, confirmed by a Bushnell trail camera (Model X-8).

Little is known about how south-east Asian snakes respond to the conversion of natural areas to humandominated land uses. We radio-tracked a Bungarus candidus (Malayan krait) in an agricultural zone of the Sakaerat Biosphere Reserve in Thailand for 68 days. The snake exhibited nocturnal activity and remained within a 3.23 ha 100% minimum convex pol...

Habitat destruction and degradation in the tropics have led to a dramatic increase in altered habitats. Understanding the impacts of these disturbed areas on biodiversity will be critical to future conservation efforts. Despite heavy deforestation, Southeast Asia is underrepresented in studies investigating faunal communities in human-modified land...

Little is known about mating behaviors in arboreal snakes. We report three observations of mating in wild big-eyed pit vipers (Trimeresurus macrops) in northeast Thailand from 2013 to 2015. Mating occurred at the end of the rainy season, between 20 September and 28 October. One copulation occurred on the ground and two were arboreal (<1.5 m high)....

Understanding and monitoring ecological impacts of the expanding agricultural industry in Belize is an important step in conservation action. To compare possible alterations in herpetofaunal communities due to these anthropogenic changes, trapping arrays were set in a manicured orchard, a reclaimed orchard and a lowland broadleaf forest in Stann Cr...

Common captures during study

Although Ahaetulla prasina is typically a cryptic green color, they have also been observed in brown, grey and orange-yellow morphs. We recorded observations of the A. prasina color morphs found in a population within the Sakaerat Biosphere Reserve (SBR), northeastern Thailand, between 2013 and 2017. We did not detect any green or brown morphs, sho...

Despite being known to exhibit arboreal behaviours, Kaloula pulchra, the banded bullfrog, is generally considered terrestrial in its habits and is well known for burrowing into substrate. Here we report seven observations, between October 2015 and March 2017, which document arboreal behaviors in banded bullfrogs in the Sakaerat Biosphere Reserve, T...

Highlights human-sources of mortality for snakes in a UNESCO wildlife reserve, particularly of venomous snakes.

Rural communities and agricultural landscapes serve as important areas for biodiversity, yet study of snakes in these fragmented environments is severely lacking. Hospital records indicate that green pit vipers (Trimeresurus spp.) inflict the highest number of venomous snakebites of any snake group in the Nakhon Ratchasima, Pak Thong Chai, and Wang...

Thailand is a world biodiversity hotspot with 176 known snake species. However, anthropogenic influences on snakes associated with growing human populations are poorly understood. Aquatic funnel traps (AFTs) are in widespread use in agricultural areas throughout Thailand, and they have the ability to collect large quantities of by-catch, including...

Total body size for arboreal vipers is normally biased toward small males and larger females. We evaluated sexual dimorphism in adult and sub-adult Trimeresurus macrops, a small, arboreal green pit viper commonly found in Southeast Asia, but severely understudied. We evaluated morphological characters of 139 adult T. macropsobtained by active and o...

The first record of ritualized combat behavior between two male Calloselasma rhodostoma (Malayan Pit Viper) was observed in Sakaerat Biosphere Reserve, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. Although most of the behavior of C. rhodostoma was similar to that recorded for other viperids, an instance of submissive behavior, which to our knowledge, has not been...

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The Big-eyed green pit viper (Trimeresurus macrops) is a venomous snake species, endemic to Southeast Asia. Although we have some knowledge of the systematics and toxicology of T. macrops, little is known about the spatial ecology of this species. Considering the increase in habitat fragmentation and isolation, it is important to study the impact o...

Seven large in situ Cenozoic petrified tree trunks, including one of the world’s longest fossil trees measuring 72.22 meters long, were excavated from 2003 – 2005 in Bantak Petrified Forest Park, Thailand. These fossils have deteriorated considerably due to the lack of proper conservation. In order to preserve the integrity of fos-sil trunks, the N...

Wild King Cobras, Ophiophagus hannah, are known to prey almost exclusively on snakes. We observed opportunistic ingestion of a plastic bag by a radio-tracked adult male O. hannah, which was detrimental to the health of the individual and likely lead to its death. Our observation demonstrates that improper disposal of food and plastic waste can be a...