Multi-scale Assessment of Rock Barrens Turtle Nesting Habitat: Effects of Moisture and Temperature on Hatch Success

Markle, Chantel E.; Sandler, Nicole; Freeman, Hope C. A.; Waddington, J. M.

doi:10.1643/h2020125

Cited by 7 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…Ledge nest sites unsurprisingly act as an intermediate nest type from a ground heat flux and heat storage perspective. These results are in line with previous work which suggests that bedrock may be an important temperature source for turtle nests at the northern limit (Bobyn & Brooks, 1994;Litzgus & Brooks, 1998) and more specifically crevice sites (Markle et al, 2021) in providing a thermally stable environment. More work is needed to quantify the thermal properties of these nests, specifically the interplay between metabolic heating and egg clutch size on the volumetric heat capacity of the nests themselves, and importance of soil moisture to thermal heating.…”

Section: Importance Of Nest Morphology To Turtle Nest Energy Flowsupporting

confidence: 93%

Bedrock morphology influences rock barrens turtle nesting habitat energy dynamics

Van Huizen,

Markle,

Moore

et al. 2024

Ecology and Evolution

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Energy absorption and flow through a nest is an important aspect of embryonic development in many reptile species including turtles. To date, few studies have explicitly attempted to quantify the energy flow through turtle nests, opting instead for the simplified approach offered by temperature index models. However, the quantification of the energy can provide an explicit abiotic link that can link biological models to biometeorological and ecohydrological processes and models. We investigated the energy flow through turtle nests occupying different bedrock morphologies within a Canadian Shield Rock Barren landscape, in Ontario, Canada. The taxons studied were Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata), Midland Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta marginata), and Blanding's Turtle (Emydoidea blandingii). Nest temperature and soil moisture were measured in 2018 and 2019 using sensors placed in the soil adjacent to 12 turtle nest cavities. Three main rock morphologies were identified for each nest location, Crevice, Ledge, and Flat types, that are in order of decreasing bedrock percentage contact with the nest site. Ground heat flux and change in heat storage were determined using the calorimetric method for each nest, while the direction of energy flux between the atmosphere and the underlying rock was also determined. The Crevice nest morphology experienced the lowest ground heat flux on average (1.56 × 10−1 W m−2) and lowest cumulative heat storage (230 MJ) compared to the Flat (440 MJ) and Ledge (331 MJ) nests. However, over the diurnal cycle, large heat gains by Flat nests were mostly balanced out by nighttime heat losses. While Crevice nests saw the lowest daily heat storage gains, they experienced much lower heat losses over the evening period compared to the other nest types. Furthermore, we found that 59% of the energy is directed from the underlying bedrock into the Crevice nest, highlighting the importance of the bedrock in controlling thermal dynamics in the turtle nesting habitat. The lower variability in energy parameters for Crevice nest types can be attributed to higher amounts of nest‐to‐bedrock contact, compared to the flat nest types. Our results indicate that Crevice morphology may be ideal for turtles nesting at their northern limits because minimal heat loss during the evening can result in a more stable thermal incubation environment. Future conservation and habitat restoration efforts should consider the importance of bedrock morphology and prioritize the protection of Crevice nest sites. Furthermore, this work highlights important opportunities for potential interdisciplinary work between ecologists, climatologists, biologists, and hydrologists, specifically the integration of ecohydrological and biological models. This work also underscores the potential uncertainty of climate change impacts on turtle egg hatching success and nest sex ratios.

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Section: Importance Of Nest Morphology To Turtle Nest Energy Flowsupporting

confidence: 93%

Bedrock morphology influences rock barrens turtle nesting habitat energy dynamics

Van Huizen,

Markle,

Moore

et al. 2024

Ecology and Evolution

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“…Our goal was to create a nest habitat design that would provide comparable soil properties to naturally available sites, while accounting for bedrock shape and slope which affect soil temperature dynamics and soil‐water drainage (Markle et al 2021). A detailed nest habitat creation guide is provided in Supplement S1.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…After hatchlings left the nest, soil cores (0.05‐m diameter) were taken beside each nest chamber at the nine created nest sites in 2019. We used previously collected soil data from Markle et al (2021) to characterize turtle‐selected nests (10 in 2018, 6 in 2019) and available nest sites (6 in 2018). Soil samples were cut into 0.05‐m depth increments and processed in the lab to determine soil bulk density, percent organic matter, and porosity (methods in Supplement S2).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our objective was to evaluate the success of a novel turtle nesting habitat design for a rock barren landscape. Based on detailed nest habitat assessments (Markle et al 2021), we designed and created turtle nesting sites to better represent natural nesting habitat in a rock barren landscape compared to the existing method of creating sand mounds. To evaluate the success of the novel nesting habitat design, we (1) assessed the survival of intact transplants of moss and lichen, (2) compared the ecohydrological and physical conditions at created, turtle-selected, and available nest sites, and (3) compared turtle egg hatching success at created and turtle-selected nest sites using a split-clutch experiment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As extreme precipitation events are predicted to increase (Li et al 2019), increased flooding may result in erosion of nest sites (Congdon et al 2000), which would be further exacerbated for sand mound nesting habitat created on open rocky outcrops. Additionally, the unique interaction among soil properties, surface cover composition, and bedrock morphology in rock‐barren nesting habitat plays a dominant role in the thermal and moisture dynamics experienced during egg incubation (Markle et al 2021). This has further implications for nest success and nest sex ratios (Gutzke & Packard 1987; Reid & Peery 2014) given many turtle species have temperature‐dependent sex determination (Bull & Vogt 1979).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Creating landscape‐appropriate habitat restoration strategies: success of a novel nesting habitat design for imperiled freshwater turtles

Markle,

Hudson,

Freeman

et al. 2024

Restoration Ecology

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Turtle nesting habitat can be created as a restoration strategy to increase habitat availability or provide suitable habitat away from threats. Traditional nest habitat restoration consists of creating nesting mounds using a mix of sand and gravel. However, nesting mounds do not resemble natural turtle nesting habitat in a rock barren landscape where turtles nest in crevices and cracks in the bedrock. Therefore, our objective was to design and evaluate the success of a landscape‐appropriate design for turtle nesting habitat in a rock barren landscape. To evaluate success of the nest habitat design, we assessed the (1) survival of transplanted moss and lichen cover on created nest sites, (2) ecohydrological and physical conditions at created and natural sites, and (3) turtle egg hatching success at created and natural sites using a split‐clutch experiment. We found no difference in productivity between lichen transplants and natural sites, indicating that intact lichen transplants were successful. Moss transplant success was more variable due to moisture stress because transplants were conducted during dry conditions. In general, created nest habitat tended to have a more stable thermal and moisture regime compared to natural sites. When accounting for maternal effects, the odds of an egg hatching successfully was 6.6 times higher in a created site than a natural site. Overall, the success of our nest habitat design in the first few years suggests that this landscape‐appropriate design will be a useful restoration strategy for increasing turtle nesting habitat in rock barren landscapes.

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Unsupervised classification of Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) behavioural states from multi-sensor biologger data

Adderley-Heron,

Chow-Fraser

2024

PLoS ONE

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Classifying animal behaviors in their natural environments is both challenging and ecologically important, but the use of biologgers with multiple sensors has significantly advanced this research beyond the capabilities of traditional methods alone. Here, we show how biologgers containing an integrated tri-axial accelerometer, GPS logger and immersion sensor were used to infer behavioural states of a cryptic, freshwater turtle, the Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii). Biologgers were attached to three males and five females that reside in two undisturbed coastal marshes in northeastern Georgian Bay (Ontario, Canada) between May and July 2023. Raw acceleration values were separated into static and dynamic acceleration and subsequently used to calculate overall dynamic body acceleration (ODBA) and pitch. The unsupervised Hidden Markov Model (HMM) successfully differentiated five behavioural states as follows: active in water, resting in water, active out of water, resting in water, and nesting. Overall accuracy of the classification was 93.8%, and except for nesting (79%), all other behaviours were above 92%. There were significant differences in daily activity budgets between male and female turtles, with females spending a greater proportion of time active out of water, and inactive out of the water, while males spent a greater proportion of time active in water. These differences were likely a result of large seasonal life-history requirements such as nesting and mate finding. Accurate classification of behavioural states is important for researchers to understand fine-scale activities carried out during the active season and how environmental variables may influence the behaviours of turtles in their natural habitats.

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Multi-scale Assessment of Rock Barrens Turtle Nesting Habitat: Effects of Moisture and Temperature on Hatch Success

Abstract: BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.

Cited by 7 publications

References 79 publications

Bedrock morphology influences rock barrens turtle nesting habitat energy dynamics

Bedrock morphology influences rock barrens turtle nesting habitat energy dynamics

Creating landscape‐appropriate habitat restoration strategies: success of a novel nesting habitat design for imperiled freshwater turtles

Unsupervised classification of Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) behavioural states from multi-sensor biologger data

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