ArticleToxins2016
Is Hybridization a Source of Adaptive Venom Variation in Rattlesnakes? A Test, Using a Crotalus scutulatus × viridis Hybrid Zone in Southwestern New Mexico.
Article in Toxins, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 39 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Evolution of genome-wide barriers to gene flow during complex speciation in rattlesnakes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Venom Variation as a Window into the Ecology and Evolution of Snakes.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Review
- Estimation of genome-wide coupling in rattlesnake hybrids provides insight into the process of speciation and its progress.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Genomic and Morphological Evidence Support Contemporary Three-Way Interspecific Hybridization in Ranid Frogs.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Variation in defensive and exploratory behaviors across a rattlesnake (Crotalus scutulatus × viridis) hybrid zone in Southwestern new Mexico.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- A Comparative Analysis of the Cytotoxic and Vascular Activity Effects of Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- A Review of Rattlesnake Venoms.Toxins · 2023Review
- Hunting behavior and feeding ecology of Mojave rattlesnakes (Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Hybridization betweenBiology · 2022Article
- Varying Intensities of Introgression Obscure Incipient Venom-Associated Speciation in the Timber Rattlesnake (Toxins · 2021Article
- Article
- A symphony of destruction: Dynamic differential fibrinogenolytic toxicity by rattlesnake (Crotalus and Sistrurus) venoms.Comparative biochemistry and physiology. Toxicology & pharmacology : CBP · 2021Article
- Phylogenetically diverse diets favor more complex venoms in North American pitvipers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- When one phenotype is not enough: divergent evolutionary trajectories govern venom variation in a widespread rattlesnake species.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Evidence for divergent patterns of local selection driving venom variation in Mojave Rattlesnakes (Crotalus scutulatus).Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Article
- Extremely Divergent Haplotypes in Two Toxin Gene Complexes Encode Alternative Venom Types within Rattlesnake Species.Current biology : CB · 2018Article
- Phenotypic Variation in Mojave Rattlesnake (Crotalus scutulatus) Venom Is Driven by Four Toxin Families.Toxins · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
15 authors at 3 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Venomous snakes often display extensive variation in venom composition both between and within species. However, the mechanisms underlying the distribution of different toxins and venom types among populations and taxa remain insufficiently known. Rattlesnakes (Crotalus, Sistrurus) display extreme inter- and intraspecific variation in venom composition, centered particularly on the presence or absence of presynaptically neurotoxic phospholipases A₂ such as Mojave toxin (MTX). Interspecific hybridization has been invoked as a mechanism to explain the distribution of these toxins across rattlesnakes, with the implicit assumption that they are adaptively advantageous. Here, we test the potential of adaptive hybridization as a mechanism for venom evolution by assessing the distribution of genes encoding the acidic and basic subunits of Mojave toxin across a hybrid zone between MTX-positive Crotalus scutulatus and MTX-negative C. viridis in southwestern New Mexico, USA. Analyses of morphology, mitochondrial and single copy-nuclear genes document extensive admixture within a narrow hybrid zone. The genes encoding the two MTX subunits are strictly linked, and found in most hybrids and backcrossed individuals, but not in C. viridis away from the hybrid zone. Presence of the genes is invariably associated with presence of the corresponding toxin in the venom. We conclude that introgression of highly lethal neurotoxins through hybridization is not necessarily favored by natural selection in rattlesnakes, and that even extensive hybridization may not lead to introgression of these genes into another species.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.