North American Box Turtles

North American Box Turtles
Author: C. Kenneth Dodd
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2002
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780806135014

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Once a familiar backyard visitor in many parts of the United States and Mexico, the box turtle is losing the battle against extinction. In North American Box Turtles, C. Kenneth Dodd, Jr., has written the first book-length natural history of the twelve species and subspecies of this endangered animal. This volume includes comprehensive information on the species’ evolution, behavior, courtship and reproduction, habitat use, diet, population structure, systematics, and disease. Special features include color photos of all species, subspecies, and their habitats; a simple identification guide to both living and fossil species; and a summary of information on fossil Terrapene and Native uses of box turtles. End-of-chapter sections highlight future research directions, including the need for long-term monitoring and observation of box turtles within their natural habitat and conservation applications. A glossary and a bibliography of literature on box turtles accompany the text. All royalties from the sales of this volume will go to the Chelonian Research Foundation, a nonprofit foundation for the conservation of turtles.

SPATIAL ECOLOGY OF EASTERN BOX TURTLES (TERRAPENE C. CAROLINA) IN THE OAK OPENINGS REGION OF NORTHWESTERN OHIO

SPATIAL ECOLOGY OF EASTERN BOX TURTLES (TERRAPENE C. CAROLINA) IN THE OAK OPENINGS REGION OF NORTHWESTERN OHIO
Author: Matthew D. Cross
Publisher:
Total Pages: 121
Release: 2016
Genre: Box turtle
ISBN:

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Eastern Box Turtles (Terrapene c. carolina) have experienced range-wide declines as the result of extensive habitat loss, fragmentation, and alteration. The Oak Openings Region of northwestern Ohio is a biodiversity hotspot that exists in a highly fragmented landscape and provides a unique case study from which to examine the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on Eastern Box Turtles. In an effort to inform management and conservation efforts in the Oak Openings Region, I initiated a radio-telemetry project with the following objectives: 1) examine the spatial ecology of Eastern Box Turtles over several years to understand how they interact with their habitat in an area as unique as the Oak Openings Region, 2) develop predictive models depicting the temporal distributions of Eastern Box Turtles, 3) examine the impacts of one of the most common management tools in the Oak Openings Region, prescribed fire, on Eastern Box Turtles, and 4) evaluate pattern-recognition software as a low-cost alternative of identifying individual Eastern Box Turtles. Turtles at my study site exhibited larger home ranges than previously reported for this species as well as hierarchical habitat selection at multiple scales. Predicted distributions followed phenological shifts in habitat use and were influenced primarily by habitat type and canopy cover. Prescribed fires have the potential to have a devastating effect on box turtle populations, but management activities that take box turtle ecology into account will minimize these impacts while maintaining a critical disturbance regime. Computer-assisted photo-recognition has a great deal of potential as a supplemental method of identifying box turtles and provides a low-cost means of incorporating citizen science data into mark-recapture studies. My work suggests that conservation for Eastern Box Turtles in the Oak Openings Region should focus on maintenance and restoration of remaining box turtle habitat, connectivity between critical habitat patches, and altering burn regimes to minimize negative effects on box turtles while still meeting ecosystem-level management objectives.

Reintroduction Biology of Head-started Ornate Box Turtles

Reintroduction Biology of Head-started Ornate Box Turtles
Author: Eric R. Sievers
Publisher:
Total Pages: 94
Release: 2015
Genre: Ornate box turtle
ISBN:

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The ornate box turtle (Terrapene ornata) is a prairie-dwelling species that has experienced population declines, especially near the northern edge of its range. In order to provide supporting research for a reintroduction program at the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge in northwestern Illinois, I compared the relative success of different approaches to reintroduction. Specifically, I tested the null hypothesis that reintroduced turtles exhibited equal reintroduction success when, 1) released at a site that is known to support a viable ornate box turtle population, 2) ‘soft-released’ in a fenced enclosure at a site where very few ornate box turtles persist, or 3) ‘hard-released’ at the same site without the protection of a fence. I also characterized important habitat components that are likely to maximize the quality of a reintroduction site. By many measures, the three treatments returned comparable results. Home ranges were not smaller when turtles were confined to a soft release enclosure, growth rates were not significantly influenced by either the enclosure or by whether or not the release location already supported an ornate box turtle population, diet was similarly varied among all three treatments, and mortality rates during the activity season were similarly low across the three treatments.