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Contributed Poster

Session: Behavior

PS 1-4 - Effect of water volume on Eastern Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta) abundance and migration patterns

Monday, August 7, 2023
5:00 PM – 6:30 PM PDT
Location: ESA Exhibit Hall
Abstract: Terrestrial movements of semi-aquatic freshwater turtles occur when resources are limited in a given habitat, preventing turtles from mating, foraging, basking, and overwintering. There is considerable evidence supporting the negative impacts of large scale habitat fragmentation (i.e. landscape transformation, agriculture, and anthropogenic activities) on the movement of turtles. Also, factors like sex, females tend to move during reproduction time, and size, as smaller turtles may be weaker competitors for resources and may rely on migrating to healthier ponds with enough resources. However, less is known about small scale pond conditions such as water level that may be influenced by pond type (i.e. ephemeral and perennial) influences turtle movement among disconnected water sources. Turtle movement among ephemeral and permanent ponds was investigated to test the effects of water volume on the movement behaviors of turtles. We hypothesized that pond volume would influence eastern painted turtles (Chrysemys picta) captures. We predicted that as pond volume decreases, smaller, younger turtles, would be the first to emigrate from ephemeral (n=3) ponds to permanent (n=2) ponds. Furthermore, we used hoop (n= 11) and minnow traps (n=13) to capture C. picta in five ponds at Blandy Experimental Farm, Boyce, VA. Captured turtles were weighted, measured, sexed, and aged (i.e. juvenile, sub-adult, adult). Individual turtles were marked by filing specific locations on their marginal scutes. Unfortunately, during the period of our study, water level never went to zero, even though some pond’s water levels were too low to trap. We found that only one turtle moved from one pond to another (Big Arnold ⇾ Little Arnold ⇾ Big Arnold) possibly caused by the non changing level of water which lead to a healthy habitat during the project duration and the energetic stress that movement implies. One other important factor was that the ponds were not connected during the duration of the project, and that means that turtles were forced to move only on land. We concluded that movement may be affected by habitat quality, water level, in this case, and that age class was not affected by water level change.