ArticleToxins2020
Diet Breadth Mediates the Prey Specificity of Venom Potency in Snakes.
Article in Toxins, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers.
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed.
- Stable yet shifting: Early toxin dynamics in typical and atypical clownfish-anemone symbioses.Toxicon: X · 2026Article
- Paralysis efficiency (PDToxicon: X · 2026Article
- Deconstructing cardiovascular and coagulation-related traits links dietary ecology to multi-functional snake venom specificity.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2026Article
- Preliminary Insights into Geographic Variation in Venom Profiles and Functional Activities of Nigerian Snakes,Toxins · 2026Article
- Inter- and Intraspecific Venom Variation in the Reclusive Rear-Fanged Black-Striped Snakes (Toxins · 2026Article
- Venom Variation as a Window into the Ecology and Evolution of Snakes.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Review
- Article
- A Chromosome-level Genome Assembly of the Western Nose-Horned Viper (Vipera ammodytes ammodytes).Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Spider venom potency exhibits phylogenetic prey specificity but does not trade-off with body size or silk use in prey capture.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Significant Serpents: Predictive Modelling of Bioclimatic Venom Variation in Russell's Viper.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- Article
- Adaptive trade-offs between vertebrate defence and insect predation drive Amazonian ant venom evolution.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Sugar assimilation underlying dietary evolution of Neotropical bats.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- Prey Shifts Drive Venom Evolution in Cone Snails.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Venomous Noodles: The Evolution of Toxins in Nemertea through Positive Selection and Gene Duplication.Toxins · 2023Article
- Inhibition of bacterial biofilms by the snake venom proteome.Biotechnology reports (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2023Article
- Pangenomics of the death cap mushroom Amanita phalloides, and of Agaricales, reveals dynamic evolution of toxin genes in an invasive range.The ISME journal · 2023Article
- Intersexual Differences in the Gene Expression ofToxins · 2023Article
- Venom phenotype conservation suggests integrated specialization in a lizard-eating snake.Toxicon : official journal of the International Society on Toxinology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Venoms are best known for their ability to incapacitate prey. In predatory groups, venom potency is predicted to reflect ecological and evolutionary drivers relating to diet. While venoms have been found to have preyspecific potencies, the role of diet breadth on venom potencies has yet to be tested at large macroecological scales. Here, using a comparative analysis of 100 snake species, we show that the evolution of prey-specific venom potencies is contingent on the breadth of a species' diet. We find that while snake venom is more potent when tested on species closely related to natural prey items, we only find this prey-specific pattern in species with taxonomically narrow diets. While we find that the taxonomic diversity of a snakes' diet mediates the prey specificity of its venom, the species richness of its diet was not found to affect these prey-specific potency patterns. This indicates that the physiological diversity of a species' diet is an important driver of the evolution of generalist venom potencies. These findings suggest that the venoms of species with taxonomically diverse diets may be better suited to incapacitating novel prey species and hence play an important role for species within changing environments.
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