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Colonization and usage of an artificial urban wetland complex by freshwater turtles
Conservation authorities invest heavily in the restoration and/or creation of wetlands to counteract the destruction of habitat caused by urbanization. Monitoring the colonization of these new wetlands is critical to an adaptive management process. We conducted a turtle mark-recapture survey in a 25...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
PeerJ Inc.
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6087426/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30123718 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5423 |
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author | Dupuis-Desormeaux, Marc Davy, Christina Lathrop, Amy Followes, Emma Ramesbottom, Andrew Chreston, Andrea MacDonald, Suzanne E. |
author_facet | Dupuis-Desormeaux, Marc Davy, Christina Lathrop, Amy Followes, Emma Ramesbottom, Andrew Chreston, Andrea MacDonald, Suzanne E. |
author_sort | Dupuis-Desormeaux, Marc |
collection | PubMed |
description | Conservation authorities invest heavily in the restoration and/or creation of wetlands to counteract the destruction of habitat caused by urbanization. Monitoring the colonization of these new wetlands is critical to an adaptive management process. We conducted a turtle mark-recapture survey in a 250 ha artificially created wetland complex in a large North American city (Toronto, Ontario). We found that two of Ontario’s eight native turtle species (Snapping turtle (SN), Chelydra serpentina, and Midland Painted (MP) turtle, Chrysemys picta marginata) were abundant and both were confirmed nesting. The Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) was present but not well established. Species richness and turtle density were not equally distributed throughout the wetland complex. We noted SN almost exclusively populated one water body, while other areas of the wetland had a varying representation of both species. The sex ratios of both SN and MP turtles were 1:1. We tracked the movement of Snapping and Blanding’s turtles and found that most turtles explored at least two water bodies in the park, that females explored more water bodies than males, and that 95% of turtles showed fidelity to individual overwintering wetlands. We performed DNA analysis of two Blanding’s turtles found in the created wetlands and could not assign these turtles to any known profiled populations. The genetic data suggest that the turtles probably belong to a remnant local population. We discuss the implications of our results for connectivity of artificial wetlands and the importance of the whole wetland complex to this turtle assemblage. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6087426 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-60874262018-08-17 Colonization and usage of an artificial urban wetland complex by freshwater turtles Dupuis-Desormeaux, Marc Davy, Christina Lathrop, Amy Followes, Emma Ramesbottom, Andrew Chreston, Andrea MacDonald, Suzanne E. PeerJ Animal Behavior Conservation authorities invest heavily in the restoration and/or creation of wetlands to counteract the destruction of habitat caused by urbanization. Monitoring the colonization of these new wetlands is critical to an adaptive management process. We conducted a turtle mark-recapture survey in a 250 ha artificially created wetland complex in a large North American city (Toronto, Ontario). We found that two of Ontario’s eight native turtle species (Snapping turtle (SN), Chelydra serpentina, and Midland Painted (MP) turtle, Chrysemys picta marginata) were abundant and both were confirmed nesting. The Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) was present but not well established. Species richness and turtle density were not equally distributed throughout the wetland complex. We noted SN almost exclusively populated one water body, while other areas of the wetland had a varying representation of both species. The sex ratios of both SN and MP turtles were 1:1. We tracked the movement of Snapping and Blanding’s turtles and found that most turtles explored at least two water bodies in the park, that females explored more water bodies than males, and that 95% of turtles showed fidelity to individual overwintering wetlands. We performed DNA analysis of two Blanding’s turtles found in the created wetlands and could not assign these turtles to any known profiled populations. The genetic data suggest that the turtles probably belong to a remnant local population. We discuss the implications of our results for connectivity of artificial wetlands and the importance of the whole wetland complex to this turtle assemblage. PeerJ Inc. 2018-08-08 /pmc/articles/PMC6087426/ /pubmed/30123718 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5423 Text en © 2018 Dupuis-Desormeaux et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
spellingShingle | Animal Behavior Dupuis-Desormeaux, Marc Davy, Christina Lathrop, Amy Followes, Emma Ramesbottom, Andrew Chreston, Andrea MacDonald, Suzanne E. Colonization and usage of an artificial urban wetland complex by freshwater turtles |
title | Colonization and usage of an artificial urban wetland complex by freshwater turtles |
title_full | Colonization and usage of an artificial urban wetland complex by freshwater turtles |
title_fullStr | Colonization and usage of an artificial urban wetland complex by freshwater turtles |
title_full_unstemmed | Colonization and usage of an artificial urban wetland complex by freshwater turtles |
title_short | Colonization and usage of an artificial urban wetland complex by freshwater turtles |
title_sort | colonization and usage of an artificial urban wetland complex by freshwater turtles |
topic | Animal Behavior |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6087426/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30123718 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5423 |
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