Meeting Abstract

78.6  Monday, Jan. 6 11:30  Swimming against the tide: resilience of a riverine turtle to extreme environmental events JANZEN, F.J.*; JERGENSON, A.M.; MILLER, D.A.W.; NEUMAN-LEE, L.A.; WARNER, D.A.; Iowa State Univ.; Iowa State Univ.; Penn State Univ.; Utah State Univ.; Univ. Alabama-Birmingham fjanzen@iastate.edu

Extreme environmental events are likely to exert deleterious effects on populations. From 1996-2012, we studied the nesting dynamics of a riverine population of painted turtles (Chrysemys picta) that experienced seven years with significantly definable spring floods. We used capture-mark-recapture methods to estimate the relationship between >5-m and >6-m flood events and parameters for this population of painted turtles in the Mississippi River. Flooding was not associated with annual differences in survival, recruitment, or annual population growth rates of the adult female segment of the population. These findings suggest that female C. picta exhibit resiliency to key extreme environmental events, which are expected to increase in frequency under ongoing climate change.