Natricine Snake Phylogeography
Overview
Glacial retreat following the Wisconsinan glacial maximum (ca. 18,000 years ago) provided new habitat for terrestrial species. We are using molecular genetic techniques to investigate colonization patterns of codistributed natricine snake species in the North American Great Lakes region. One question of interest is the degree to which the formation of Lake Michigan forced colonization to follow two fronts, on east and one west of the lake.
Fig. 1. Hypothesized colonization routes (solid arrows) into the Great Lakes region by natricine snakes (after Holman 1995). Solid line represents maximum southern extent of Wisconsinan ice sheets. Dashed arrows represent routes into southern Ontario that became restricted as water levels in Lake Erie and Lake Huron rose ca. 4,000 ybp. Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron were broadly connected at Sault St. Marie until ca. 2,200 ybp
Species of interest
Invitation to exchange tissue samples
Although our work is focused in the Great Lakes region, we are interested in obtaining tissue samples from throughout the range of the species listed above. If you have access to tissue samples from these species that you can share, please contact Rich King at rbking@niu.edu. We have good success extracting high quality DNA from blood (typically drawn from vessels in the tail), tail tips (5-10 mm in length), internal tissues (muscle or liver from deceases/road killed animals), and shed skins. Tissues can be stored frozen or in 95% ethanol. When possible, we are more than happy to provide tissue samples to others.