Literaturdatenbank
Literaturdatenbank |
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Guyer, C., Johnson, V. M., & Hermann, S. M. (2012). Effects of population density on patterns of movement and behavior of gopher tortoises (gopherus polyphemus). Herpetological Monographs, (in press).
Added by: Sarina Wunderlich (18 Nov 2012 17:43:28 UTC) |
| Resource type: Journal Article DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1655/HERPMONOGRAPHS-D-10-00004.1 BibTeX citation key: Guyer2012 View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: Habitat = habitat, Nordamerika = North America, Schildkröten = turtles + tortoises Creators: Guyer, Hermann, Johnson Collection: Herpetological Monographs |
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| Abstract |
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Testudinidae Patterns of burrow size, tortoise size, home range size and overlap, movement distances, and mating rates were compared among six sites that differed in density of gopher tortoises. Burrow sizes differed among sites because tortoise size distributions differed among sites, but this was due principally to the unusually small size of animals on the Conecuh National Forest. A linear relationship between tortoise density and burrow density was documented from the six sites, suggesting that tortoises, on average, created 2.5 burrows per site or that the burrow-to-tortoise conversion factor for our sites was 0.40. The average distance from a burrow to its nearest three neighbors was greater for low density sites than for high density sites, indicating that animals likely were more isolated from each other on sites with low tortoise densities. Tortoise home ranges were larger in males than females, a feature documented in other studies of tortoise movements. Home range sizes were greatest for densities of ca. 0.4 tortoises/ha and decreased in size above and below this density. This suggests that animals moved to visit close neighbors in areas of high density, expanded movements to maintain contact with neighbors that became more widely dispersed as density decreased, and then restricted movements to a few close neighbors as density reached extremely low levels. Home range overlap increased linearly with increasing density, suggesting that opportunities for social interactions decreased with decreasing density. When tortoises moved between burrows, males moved longer distances than females and tortoises of both sexes moved shorter distances on high-density sites than did tortoises on low density sites, suggesting greater movement costs for males than females and for tortoises on low density sites. Males traveled up to 500 meters to visit female burrows, but most movements were less than 80 m. Median movement distances of males to visit females were negatively correlated with burrow density, suggesting that cost of male movements to find mates increased as population density decreased. Based upon patterns of 95% CL, rates of mountings of female tortoises approached zero when females occupied burrows ca. 200 m from neighboring burrows. If burrows were uniformly distributed 200 m apart, then reproductive failure would be a statistically-supportable outcome at a density of 0.3 burrows/ha (0.12 tortoises/ha). These values are similar to the values of 0.4 tortoises/ha (1.0 burrows/ha) that our data suggest is the density at which social structure associated with movements within home ranges are altered.
Added by: Sarina Wunderlich |