What is it about?
Understanding how and why herpetofauna move in relation to their environment is important for conservation. This paper examines the weekly movement of 305 Mojave desert tortoises over three years relative to weather, landscape characteristics, and human modifications.
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Why is it important?
We found that the probability of tortoise move between (rather than within) clusters of burrows was related to recent rainfall, temperature, and the presence of fencing (which excluded tortoise from an adjacent solar energy facility). All three of these conditions are likely to change under climate change and further development of the area. Our results provide a useful baseline from which we can detect future changes in tortoise movement behavior.
Perspectives
This paper offered me and my co-authors the rare opportunity to dig deeply into a large data set to uncover local-scale, short -term patterns of movement and relationships with the environment that were not immediately clear using data aggregated to seasonal scales.
Giancarlo Sadoti
University of Nevada, Reno
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Discriminating patterns and drivers of multiscale movement in herpetofauna: The dynamic and changing environment of the Mojave desert tortoise, Ecology and Evolution, July 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/ece3.3235.
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