Meeting Abstract

P1.3  Thursday, Jan. 3  Annual vs. Multiple Year Home Range Sizes of Individual Blanding�s Turtles, Emydoidea blandingii, in Central Wisconsin SCHULER, M. S.*; THIEL, R. P.; Indiana State University; Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources mschuler2@indstate.edu

Sound decisions about wildlife management generally require some knowledge about the space used by a species. Most of this information comes from studies of home ranges, which usually occur over short durations. But how well do movements of animals over short periods reflect their movements over their lifetime? To address this question, we studied the movements of a long-lived species, the Blanding�s turtle (Emydoidea Blandingii). Eighteen turtles were radio tagged at Sandhill Wildlife Area in Central Wisconsin. Individuals were followed between one and six years. The locations of individuals were plotted on maps and ranges were estimated using Minimum Convex Polygons (MCP). We compared the use of space by individuals within years to their use of space of the entire study. Annual home range is the total area used by an organism in a given year for daily life activities such as foraging, mating, hibernating, and resting. Life range is the entire area used by an individual organism over multiple years, including shifts in annual home ranges. Turtles monitored over multiple years showed a significant difference between annual home range size (25.47 hectares) and life range size (65.65 hectares) (n = 18, P = 0.0157). Hence caution should be employed when making management decisions based on short term studies of long lived species. We propose a distinction between home ranges and life ranges because the latter provides more accurate information about the needs of a species.