Meeting Abstract

P3.115  Monday, Jan. 6 15:30  Status of a Translocated Florida Sand Skink Plestiodon reynoldsi Population: Criteria for Success EMERICK, A/R; University of South Florida aemerick@mail.usf.edu

The translocation of organisms is becoming a frequently used tool in conservation biology. Translocation efforts involving small reptiles are replete with failed attempts to establish viable populations, owing to a paucity of data on life history or the ecological conditions that the organisms require. Logistical and temporal limits of monitoring, combined with ambiguous metrics concerning “success”, has led to few advances regarding reptile translocation. Successful populations display fitness through the survival and reproduction of both the founding population, and the survival and reproduction of at least one subsequent generation at consistent or increasing levels. A small population of the Florida Sand Skink Plestiodon reynoldsi was relocated to a conservation site in 2007 to investigate the environmental associations and demography of a translocated population. The current study used mark-recapture data of individuals collected during two separate sampling events during the sixth year after the translocation occurred. Trends in population size, survival, reproduction, and generation structure were found by combining data from all years post-translocation. Novel individuals captured in the sixth year exceeded captures during every prior sampling event since monitoring began, with founding individuals representing only 10% of total captures. Despite this reduction, juvenile captures also increased from previous years, indicating successful reproduction by first and possibly second filial generations. These results are significant in the light of the history of reptile translocations, and the methods applied here will contribute to developing more effective management strategies for reptile translocations.