What Makes a Hot-Spring Habitat “Hot” for the Hot-Spring Snake: Distributional Data and Niche Modelling for the Genus Thermophis (Serpentes, Colubridae)

Knowledge about species’ distributions is central to diverse applications in ecology, biogeography, and conservation science. Hot-spring snakes of the genus Thermophis share a distribution restricted geothermal sites at Tibetan Plateau (T. baileyi) Hengduan Mountains zhaoermii, T. shangrila). Although suture zones these regions are widely covered with hot springs, populations only few habitats. Here, we use bioclimatic, topographic, land cover data model potential genus. Moreover, using logistic regression on field survey test whether hot-spring water parameters landscape features correlate presence or absence. Hot springs temperatures between 45 100 °C winter precipitation showed most predictive power. At small scale, our support relevance temperature occurrence indicate that also along-valley distance from site major river might influence species. Our findings contribute better understand factors shaping current will aid setting priorities applied biology for snakes.