Integrating snake distribution, abundance and expert-derived behavioural traits predicts snakebite risk
Integrating snake distribution, abundance and expert-derived behavioural traits predicts snakebite risk
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DOI：
10.1111/1365-2664.14081
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发表时间：
2021-11-19
影响因子：
5.7
通讯作者：
Murray, Kris A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Martin, Gerardo;Erinjery, Joseph;Murray, Kris A.
尽管对人类健康有重要影响，但大多数医学上相关的蛇的分布、数量和行为仍然知之甚少。这些数据的缺失阻碍了对毒蛇咬伤致病途径的定性，以及对风险最大地区的优先管理选择的努力。我们估计了来自斯里兰卡的7种具有医学意义的蛇类物种的丰度空间格局，并将它们与从专家意见调查中获得的物种相对丰度、攻击性和毒化严重程度指数相结合，以检验这些基本生态特征是否能够解释蛇咬伤和毒蛇中毒发生率的空间格局。用点过程模型分析了蛇类发生记录与独立环境因子(基本生态位和土地覆盖)的空间强度关系。然后，利用估计的丰度模式，我们测试了哪些物种的丰度加在一起，在有没有对攻击性、毒害严重性和相对丰度进行加权的情况下，与人均蛇咬伤和毒液中毒的地理发病率模式最相关。我们发现，根据物种特征对丰度模式进行加权，与发病率的相关性增加。最佳组合为攻击性和丰度加权的三种，与蛇咬发生率的相关系数为r=0.47(p<；0.01)。两个物种的投毒严重程度和相对丰度加权组合与投毒发生率的相关性最强(r=0.46，p=0)。合成与应用。我们发现，蛇咬伤的风险是由蛇类物种的丰富性、攻击性和毒化严重性来解释的，这些蛇类最常发生在毒蛇案件中。通过关键蛇物种的生态信息纳入因果关系对于绘制蛇咬伤风险图、帮助为主要蛇物种量身定做预防措施和部署必要的抗蛇毒疗法至关重要。
Despite important implications for human health, distribution, abundance and behaviour of most medically relevant snakes remain poorly understood. Such data deficiencies hamper efforts to characterise the causal pathways of snakebite envenoming and to prioritise management options in the areas at greatest risk. We estimated the spatial patterns of abundance of seven medically relevant snake species from Sri Lanka, a snakebite hotspot, and combined them with indices of species' relative abundance, aggressiveness and envenoming severity obtained from an expert opinion survey, to test whether these fundamental ecological traits could explain spatial patterns of snakebite and envenoming incidence. The spatial intensity of snake occurrence records in relation to independent environmental factors (fundamental niches and land cover) was analysed with point process models. Then, with the estimated patterns of abundance, we tested which species' abundances added together, with and without weightings for aggressiveness, envenoming severity and relative abundance, best correlate with per capita geographic incidence patterns of snakebite and envenoming. We found that weighting abundance patterns by species' traits increased correlation with incidence. The best performing combination had three species weighted by aggressiveness and abundance, with a correlation of r = 0.47 (p < 0.01) with snakebite incidence. An envenoming severity and relative abundance-weighted combination of two species was the most strongly associated with envenoming incidence (r = 0.46, p = 0). Synthesis and applications. We show that snakebite risk is explained by abundance, aggressiveness and envenoming severity of the snake species most frequently involved in envenoming cases. Incorporating causality via ecological information of key snake species is critical for snakebite risk mapping, helping to tailor preventive measures for dominant snake species and deploying the necessary antivenom therapies.