Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

I am requesting funds to purchase equipment to house lab colonies of snakes. The snakes will be used as study organisms in my research program. There are two components to my research program: applied field work that focuses on the spatial ecology, critical habitat identification, and recovery of turtle species at risk; and basic science that focuses on variation in life history, maternal investment, and physiological-ecology of reptiles. The applied component of my research program has been successful because that work has been relatively well funded. However, my ability to address some basic life history questions has been somewhat limited by my study systems: species-at-risk turtles in the field. I would like to establish lab colonies of two readily-available species of North American Colubrid snakes (Corn Snakes and Garter Snakes) in order to better address questions about maternal investment and energetic tradeoffs in vertebrate ectotherms. I am requesting funds from NSERC to support the advancement of my research program in this new lab-based direction. With lab colonies, I will have greater sample sizes and therefore greater statistical power. The lab snakes will allow me to directly manipulate energy availability using various feeding treatments, seasonality using incubators, etc, and to thereby directly test the effects of these factors on growth rate, body condition, reproductive frequency, and maternal investment.