Is an additional stone necessary? Artificial refuges that offer excellent thermal and hydric conditions do not always attract snakes
Abstract
Although artificial refuges are widely used to improve or restore natural habitats, their effectiveness is rarely evaluated. Most snake species are in sharp decline worldwide and they depend heavily on refuges that can buffer ambient thermal and hydric fluctuations. Amending their habitats by creating refuges is therefore a widely used but undervalued solution. In a heterogeneous Mediterranean habitat, we installed four clusters of five artificial refuges (ARs) in the form of semi-buried stone piles, and deployed a network of 400 fibrocement boards across a wide area to facilitate snake observation. This experimental setup was monitored from April 2024 to November 2025 (195 fieldwork days), with the ARs being inspected monthly from November 2024 to October 2025. Temperature and relative humidity data showed that the ARs provided optimal conditions for snakes, particularly during summer heatwaves and during hibernation. Board surveys provided 312 observations of snakes (four species). However, analyses of site occupancy showed that the ARs were not attractive to snakes. Furthermore, the probability of encountering snakes was higher in semi-open vegetation areas despite the low density of natural refuges. Given the costs of creating ARs, this seems unnecessary in a complex, heterogeneous natural environment. The widespread approach of proposing the creation of reptile refuges regardless of the landscape should be reappraised based on preliminary mapping of habitat quality and natural refuges availability. More generally, the results highlight the importance of evaluating the effectiveness of the implemented measures and optimising the use of limited funds for alternative mitigation actions.
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BibTeX
@article{laurence2026additional,
title = {{Is an additional stone necessary? Artificial refuges that offer excellent thermal and hydric conditions do not always attract snakes}},
author = {Florian Laurence and Mehdi Benotmane--Le Jeune and Jérémie Demay and Olivier Scher and Aurélien Besnard and Xavier Bonnet},
journal = {Journal for Nature Conservation},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1016/j.jnc.2026.127440},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05767552v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Is an additional stone necessary? Artificial refuges that offer excellent thermal and hydric conditions do not always attract snakes
AU - Florian Laurence
AU - Mehdi Benotmane--Le Jeune
AU - Jérémie Demay
AU - Olivier Scher
AU - Aurélien Besnard
AU - Xavier Bonnet
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/25
JO - Journal for Nature Conservation
DO - 10.1016/j.jnc.2026.127440
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05767552v1
AB - Although artificial refuges are widely used to improve or restore natural habitats, their effectiveness is rarely evaluated. Most snake species are in sharp decline worldwide and they depend heavily on refuges that can buffer ambient thermal and hydric fluctuations. Amending their habitats by creating refuges is therefore a widely used but undervalued solution. In a heterogeneous Mediterranean habitat, we installed four clusters of five artificial refuges (ARs) in the form of semi-buried stone piles, and deployed a network of 400 fibrocement boards across a wide area to facilitate snake observation. This experimental setup was monitored from April 2024 to November 2025 (195 fieldwork days), with the ARs being inspected monthly from November 2024 to October 2025. Temperature and relative humidity data showed that the ARs provided optimal conditions for snakes, particularly during summer heatwaves and during hibernation. Board surveys provided 312 observations of snakes (four species). However, analyses of site occupancy showed that the ARs were not attractive to snakes. Furthermore, the probability of encountering snakes was higher in semi-open vegetation areas despite the low density of natural refuges. Given the costs of creating ARs, this seems unnecessary in a complex, heterogeneous natural environment. The widespread approach of proposing the creation of reptile refuges regardless of the landscape should be reappraised based on preliminary mapping of habitat quality and natural refuges availability. More generally, the results highlight the importance of evaluating the effectiveness of the implemented measures and optimising the use of limited funds for alternative mitigation actions.
SN - 1617-1381
ER -