ArticlePloS one2016
Are Diet Preferences Associated to Skulls Shape Diversification in Xenodontine Snakes?
Article in PloS one, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 66 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Divergent Paths, Convergent Heads: Morphological Adaptation of Head Shape to Habitat Use and Diet in Snakes.Journal of morphology · 2025Article
- A comparative study of prey-handling behavior of the Chiwen keelback snake (Current zoology · 2025Article
- Ecological drivers of jaw morphological evolution in lepidosaurs.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Paedomorphosis and retention of juvenile diet lead speciation in a group of Neotropical snakes (Colubroides-Philodryadini).Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Ecological correlates of cranial evolution in the megaradiation of dipsadine snakes.BMC ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Flexible conservatism in the skull modularity of convergently evolved myrmecophagous placental mammals.BMC ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- The diet of early birds based on modern and fossil evidence and a new framework for its reconstruction.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2021Review
- Network analyses reveal the role of large snakes in connecting feeding guilds in a species-rich Amazonian snake community.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- What makes a fang? Phylogenetic and ecological controls on tooth evolution in rear-fanged snakes.BMC evolutionary biology · 2020Article
- Exploring the functional meaning of head shape disparity in aquatic snakes.Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
- Article
- Female-biased gape and body-size dimorphism in the New World watersnakes (tribe: Thamnophiini) oppose predictions from Rensch's rule.Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- Ecomorphological diversification in squamates from conserved pattern of cranial integration.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- Divergent selection along elevational gradients promotes genetic and phenotypic disparities among small mammal populations.Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- Study of morphological variation of northern Neotropical Ariidae reveals conservatism despite macrohabitat transitions.BMC evolutionary biology · 2018Article
- Phylogenetic analysis of standard metabolic rate of snakes: a new proposal for the understanding of interspecific variation in feeding behavior.Journal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology · 2018Article
- Trophic specialization drives morphological evolution in sea snakes.Royal Society open science · 2018Article
- The ecological origins of snakes as revealed by skull evolution.Nature communications · 2018Article
- Morphological modularity in the vertebral column of Felidae (Mammalia, Carnivora).BMC evolutionary biology · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Snakes are a highly successful group of vertebrates, within great diversity in habitat, diet, and morphology. The unique adaptations for the snake skull for ingesting large prey in more primitive macrostomatan snakes have been well documented. However, subsequent diversification in snake cranial shape in relation to dietary specializations has rarely been studied (e.g. piscivory in natricine snakes). Here we examine a large clade of snakes with a broad spectrum of diet preferences to test if diet preferences are correlated to shape variation in snake skulls. Specifically, we studied the Xenodontinae snakes, a speciose clade of South American snakes, which show a broad range of diets including invertebrates, amphibians, snakes, lizards, and small mammals. We characterized the skull morphology of 19 species of xenodontine snakes using geometric morphometric techniques, and used phylogenetic comparative methods to test the association between diet and skull morphology. Using phylogenetic partial least squares analysis (PPLS) we show that skull morphology is highly associated with diet preferences in xenodontine snakes.
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