Spatial and Temporal Habitat-Use Patterns of Wood Turtles at the Western Edge of Their Distribution

Brown, Donald J.; Nelson, Mark D.; Rugg, David; Buech, Richard R.; Donner, Deahn M.

doi:10.1670/15-139

Cited by 9 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Analysis of 3 rd order selection revealed that turtles preferred forest habitat over all other habitat types, a result that is consistent with prior knowledge of Wood Turtle habit requirements (Walde et al 2003;Arvisais et al 2004, Browne et al 2016. It is likely that Wood Turtles did not actively select forest habitat within core activity areas from the regulated habitat because its availability within the regulated area exceeds the needs of these individuals (Brown et al 2016). Within core activity areas mature, closedcanopy riparian forest was the most preferred habitat, demonstrating the importance of this habitat type to meet daily needs such as thermoregulation and foraging.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among the many threats to this species; habitat loss, road mortality, poaching, and anthropogenic disturbance are considered the major reasons for declining populations (Garber and Burger 1995;Daigle and Jutras 2005;COSEWIC 2007;Amato et al 2008;Willoughby et al 2013). There have been at least 35 prior studies to investigate habitat use and movement by Wood Turtles (Brown et al 2016) involving a broad array of sites spanning the species range and providing a firm basis for general characterization of critical habitat for the species.…”

Section: Fine-and Coarse-scale Movements and Habitat Use By Wood Turtmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fine- and coarse-scale movements and habitat use by Wood Turtles (Glyptemys insculpta) based on probabilistic modeling of radiotelemetry and GPS-telemetry data

et al. 2018

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Understanding animal movement and habitat use is critical for the delineation of habitat requiring protection for species at risk. Defining critical habitat requires studies with observations at a fine enough scale to reflect how animals use and move among habitats and include enough individuals to generalize findings to the population. We present results of a multiyear study on 48 adult Wood Turtles (Glyptemys insculpta (Le Conte, 1830)) from two different populations monitored with low-frequency radiotelemetry and high-frequency GPS telemetry. Results demonstrated the propensity for conventional radiotelemetry to underestimate cumulative distances moved and overestimate the amount of habitat used by Wood Turtles. Together the two data sets demonstrate the propensity for Wood Turtles to remain in close proximity to the river and that some differences in habitat use occur between the sexes; males tended to move parallel to the river, whereas females moved perpendicular to the river. The GPS-telemetry data provided a robust spatiotemporal data set that provided a better understanding of frequently used habitat types and features. Overall, study results suggest that currently delineated areas of protected habitat are likely to be effective in conserving these two populations and provides significantly improved, spatially explicit knowledge that can be used to inform further mitigation efforts if necessary.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Fine-and Coarse-scale Movements and Habitat Use By Wood Turtmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fine- and coarse-scale movements and habitat use by Wood Turtles (Glyptemys insculpta) based on probabilistic modeling of radiotelemetry and GPS-telemetry data

et al. 2018

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“…Non-forest vegetation consisting of lowland alder (Alnus spp. ), grass/forb openings, oxbow lakes, and other non-flowing water features also occur in the study area [20].…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 89%

“…The watershed surrounding the river is 75% public land and 25% private land. More than 90% of the study area is forested, with the remainder in non-forest and aquatic habitat classes [20]. Mesic forest types, which comprise 80% of the area, are dominated by aspen (Populus spp.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Quantifying features that degrade GPS satellite signal and data loss for the specific conditions and seasons under study, and a sampling interval consistent with animal deployment, is necessary for unbiased GPS data analysis [18].The use of GPS units has strong potential for improving our understanding of diel and seasonal activity and habitat use patterns for semi-aquatic freshwater turtles [4], particularly for species that spend a large amount of time on land. The wood turtle (Glyptemys insculpta) is one such species, where individuals use terrestrial habitats from late-spring to early-fall [19,20]. However, during the active period, wood turtles often use forests, as well as regularly return to water, both of which can interfere with or block GPS signals [21].…”

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confidence: 99%

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GPS Technology for Semi-Aquatic Turtle Research

2019

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Global positioning system (GPS) telemetry units are now small enough to be deployed on terrestrial and semi-aquatic turtles. Many of these GPS units use snapshot technology which collects raw satellite and timestamp data during brief periods of data recording to minimize size. We evaluated locations from snapshot GPS units in stationary tests and on wood turtles (Glyptemys insculpta) in northeastern Minnesota. Stationary GPS units were placed in wood turtle habitat to evaluate location accuracy, fix success rate, and directional bias. The GPS fix success rate and accuracy were reduced in closed canopy conditions and when the stationary GPS unit was placed under a log to simulate wood turtle hiding behavior. We removed GPS location outliers and used a moving average calculation to reduce mean location error in stationary tests from 27 m (SD = 38) to 10 m (SD = 8). We then deployed GPS units and temperature loggers on wood turtles and collected 122,657 GPS locations and 242,781 temperature readings from 26 turtles from May to September 2015 and 2016. Location outliers accounted for 12% of locations when the GPS receiver was on a turtle. We classified each wood turtle location based on the GPS location and by comparing temperature profiles from river, sun, and shaded locations to the temperature logger on the turtle. We estimated that wood turtles were on land 68% (SD = 12) of the time from May to September. The fix success rate for land locations was 38% (SD = 9), indicating that wood turtles often use habitats with obstructed views of the sky. Mean net daily movement was 55 m (SD = 192). Our results demonstrate that snapshot GPS units and temperature loggers provide fine-scale GPS data useful in describing spatial ecology and habitat use of semi-aquatic turtles.

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Survey and analysis design for wood turtle population monitoring

2017

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Population monitoring is a fundamental component of wildlife management, and is necessary to track site-and regional-level status and recovery of species of conservation concern. The wood turtle (Glyptemys insculpta) is a species of conservation concern for federal and state agencies because of population declines across the species' range. We developed and tested a survey and analysis design to assist agencies in the Upper Midwest, USA, with establishment of long-term monitoring programs for wood turtle populations. In spring of 2016, we conducted 8 replicate population surveys at 8 candidate long-term monitoring sites in northeastern Minnesota, USA. Using field survey data and simulation models, we assessed the influence of distance from river surveyed, number of survey replications, and number of sites on abundance estimates; we also delineated important survey covariates and compared demographic estimates based on distance from river surveyed. We estimated site-level abundances and compared survey designs using a multinomial N-mixture model that included a removal sampling observation process. Mean abundance estimates were similar when surveying 2 transects (i.e., the river-land interface to $25 m inland) or 4 transects (i.e., the river-land interface to $55 m inland), but decreasing the survey distance from river reduced the precision of estimates. Mean abundance estimates were similar with !6 replications. Air temperature was an important predictor of survey-specific detection probability, with maximum detectability at 19À238C. Sex ratio and mean carapace length did not differ based on whether we surveyed 2 or 4 transects, and percentage of individuals by size class was nearly identical between the sampling designs. Simulations indicated that 75% of mean abundance estimates were within AE8% of true abundance when !15 sites were surveyed. The wood turtle survey and analysis design we developed and tested was effective for estimating abundance of wood turtle populations in northeastern Minnesota, and we encourage its use as a template for wood turtle monitoring programs in the Upper Midwest. Ó 2017 The Wildlife Society.

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Spatial and Temporal Habitat-Use Patterns of Wood Turtles at the Western Edge of Their Distribution

Cited by 9 publications

References 38 publications

Fine- and coarse-scale movements and habitat use by Wood Turtles (Glyptemys insculpta) based on probabilistic modeling of radiotelemetry and GPS-telemetry data

Fine- and coarse-scale movements and habitat use by Wood Turtles (Glyptemys insculpta) based on probabilistic modeling of radiotelemetry and GPS-telemetry data

GPS Technology for Semi-Aquatic Turtle Research

Survey and analysis design for wood turtle population monitoring

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