ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2019
When one phenotype is not enough: divergent evolutionary trajectories govern venom variation in a widespread rattlesnake species.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 59 papers.
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Who cites it
59 citing papers in PubMed, 103 citations in OpenAlex.
- Venom variation and the future of antivenom design: Integrating population venomics, evolutionary toxinology, and precision therapeutics.Toxicon: X · 2026Review
- Preliminary Insights into Geographic Variation in Venom Profiles and Functional Activities of Nigerian Snakes,Toxins · 2026Article
- Comparative venomics reveals intra, interspecific and ontogenetic changes in the venom composition of Lachesis snakes from Colombia.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2026Article
- Article
- Snakebite envenoming in India: it is time we look beyond the concept of the Big Four species.Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene · 2025Review
- Article
- Phenotypic dichotomy in Crotalus durissus ruruima venom and potential consequences for clinical management of snakebite envenomations.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- Preclinical evaluation of the neutralising efficacy of three antivenoms against the venoms of the recently taxonomically partitioned E. ocellatus and E. romani.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- Venomics of the Arabian saw-scaled viper (Echis coloratus) through transcriptome-guided proteomics and in vitro functional profiling.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- Snake Venomics of the Arboreal Talamancan Palm-Pitviper,Journal of proteome research · 2025Article
- Significant Serpents: Predictive Modelling of Bioclimatic Venom Variation in Russell's Viper.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- Ambient temperature and toxic diets constrain snake venom resistance in a desert rodent.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Article
- Comparative venom analysis between melanistic and normally coloured phenotypes of the common adder (Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Cold kiss still hot: limited temperature effects on envenomation performance in predatory strikes of a Japanese pit viper (Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Venom diversity in Naja mossambica: Insights from proteomic and immunochemical analyses reveal intraspecific differences.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2024Article
- A Review of Rattlesnake Venoms.Toxins · 2023Review
- Hunting behavior and feeding ecology of Mojave rattlesnakes (Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Article
- Sequence Divergence in Venom Genes Within and Between Montane Pitviper (Viperidae: Crotalinae: Cerrophidion) Species is Driven by Mutation-Drift Equilibrium.Journal of molecular evolution · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 10 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Understanding the origin and maintenance of phenotypic variation, particularly across a continuous spatial distribution, represents a key challenge in evolutionary biology. For this, animal venoms represent ideal study systems: they are complex, variable, yet easily quantifiable molecular phenotypes with a clear function. Rattlesnakes display tremendous variation in their venom composition, mostly through strongly dichotomous venom strategies, which may even coexist within a single species. Here, through dense, widespread population-level sampling of the Mojave rattlesnake, Crotalus scutulatus, we show that genomic structural variation at multiple loci underlies extreme geographical variation in venom composition, which is maintained despite extensive gene flow. Unexpectedly, neither diet composition nor neutral population structure explain venom variation. Instead, venom divergence is strongly correlated with environmental conditions. Individual toxin genes correlate with distinct environmental factors, suggesting that different selective pressures can act on individual loci independently of their co-expression patterns or genomic proximity. Our results challenge common assumptions about diet composition as the key selective driver of snake venom evolution and emphasize how the interplay between genomic architecture and local-scale spatial heterogeneity in selective pressures may facilitate the retention of adaptive functional polymorphisms across a continuous space.
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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.