Fig 1.
Study site: Bubbling ponds hatchery in Yavapai County, Arizona, looking north.
Active fish-rearing ponds are the nine long oval ponds to the north and east. Fallow ponds are the four vegetated blocks in the south middle. The four ponds to the southwest were drained during much of the study (June 2015 –February 2016). The pond in the far southwest was lined with black polypropylene liner and remained empty. To the south of the managed ponds are a rocky ridge covered by trees and a wet meadow. Oak Creek borders the site on the east. Inset shows general location (star) of the study site in North America.
Table 1.
Habitat characteristics.
Fig 2.
Diagram of plot and transect design used to measure habitat variables.
One 1-m-diameter plot and four randomly-oriented perpendicular 2.5-m transects placed with the snake/random location as the centerpoint.
Fig 3.
a) Canopy cover from trees, low-height cover from living vegetation (grass), and ground cover from bare, rock, litter, woody debris, and small-diameter vegetation; b) low-height cover from living and dead vegetation, litter, and woody debris and ground cover from litter and woody debris; c) low-height cover from living vegetation (forb and grass) and ground cover from bare, rock, and small-diameter vegetation; d) low-height cover from vegetation, woody debris, and litter and ground cover from rock, litter, and woody debris.
Table 2.
Habitat described by four PCA components.
Fig 4.
Biplots of four habitat components generated from PCA analyses.
a) C1 (cover and litter) vs. C2 (slope, forb, and bare ground cover) and b) C3 (small-diameter vegetation abundance) and C4 (distance to water). Percentages in parentheses show the amount of variation in the data accounted for by that component.
Table 3.
Habitat descriptive statistics at snake points and random points across gender and season.
Table 4.
Habitat descriptive statistics at snake points and random points across gender during the inactive season.
Table 5.
Gartersnake habitat models and percent change in selection across seasons.
Table 6.
Area of gartersnake activity range.
Fig 5.
Mean gartersnake body temperatures calculated from temperature-sensing transmitters by a) season and b) month.
Bars show standard error and letters represent significant differences between seasons/months from mixed-effects ANOVAs. Sex was not a significant factor.