A home range is the area animals use to carry out routine activities such as mating, foraging, and caring for young. Thus, the area of a home range is an important indicator of an animal’s behavioural and energetic requirements. While several studies have identified the factors that influence home range area (HRA), none of them has investigated global patterns of HRA among and within snake species. Here, we used a phylogenetic mixed model to determine which factors influence HRA in 51 snake species. We analysed 200 HRA estimates to test the influence of body mass, sex, age, diet, precipitation, latitude, winter and summer temperature, while controlling for the duration of the study and sample size. We found that males had larger HRA than females, that adults had larger HRA than juveniles, and that snake species with fish-based diets had smaller HRA than snake species with terrestrial vertebrate-based and invertebrate-based diets. We also found that HRA tended to increase as mean winter temperature decreases and tended to decrease with precipitation. After accounting for these factors, the phylogenetic heritability of HRA in snakes was low (0.21 ± 0.14). Determining the factors that dictate macroecological patterns of space use has important management implications in an era of rapid climate change.

家园是动物用来进行例行活动的区域，例如交配，觅食和照顾幼年。因此，家庭范围的面积是动物行为和精力需求的重要指标。尽管有几项研究已经确定了影响家禽饲养区（HRA）的因素，但没有一项研究蛇类之间和内部的全球HRA模式。在这里，我们使用系统发育混合模型来确定哪些因素影响51种蛇的HRA。我们分析了200个HRA估计值，以测试体重，性别，年龄，饮食，降水，纬度，冬季和夏季温度的影响，同时控制研究的持续时间和样本量。我们发现，男性的HRA比女性大，成人的HRA比少年大，与以陆栖脊椎动物和无脊椎动物为食的蛇类相比，以鱼为食的蛇类具有较小的HRA。我们还发现，HRA随平均冬季温度降低而升高，并随降水而降低。考虑到这些因素后，蛇中HRA的系统遗传力很低（0.21±0.14）。在迅速的气候变化时代，确定决定空间使用的宏观生态模式的因素具有重要的管理意义。