Space use and resource selection of Wood Turtles (Glyptemys insculpta) in the northeastern part of its range

Abstract

The threats that affect a species often vary within its geographic range. Wood Turtles ( Glyptemys insculpta (Le Conte, 1830), formerly Clemmys insculpta (Le Conte, 1830)) are a species of concern due to widespread decline from anthropogenic threats. We studied two populations of Wood Turtles from June to September 2019 and 2020 to evaluate how landscape features and vegetative structure influenced space and habitat use and to identify potential risks in the remote, northern parts of its range. We hypothesized that space use would vary due to regional, landscape, and sex-specific differences. Turtles at the conifer-dominated site with higher road density had significantly smaller home ranges than the site with expansive and contiguous floodplains (7.25 ± 1.92 ha and 26.28 ± 6.77 ha, respectively). Females moved farther away from rivers than males (136.00 ± 23.68 m and 69.18 ± 34.81 m, respectively) and made the longest single-event movements. However, movements by males were significantly longer (34.65 ± 1.91 m) than females (23.99 ± 1.03 m) and followed rivers. At finer spatial scales, we found that turtles selected activity areas with complex vegetative structure and a more open canopy. Our study indicates that populations in contiguous forest could be critical to the conservation of Wood Turtles and we discuss management recommendations to reduce potential mortality risks in the northern part of its range.