Live Oral Presentation in person as part of National Virtual Conference AFSS Conference 2020

Movement strategies of adult female turtles during wet-dry cycling of an urban wetland complex (#27)

Anthony Santoro 1
  1. Environmental and Conservation Sciences / Harry Butler Institute, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Climate warming and various other human impacts present challenges to freshwater turtles and especially adult females that migrate for nesting. We radio-tracked adult female turtles, Chelodina oblonga (n=101), in an urban wetland complex comprising one permanent, one semi-permanent and one ephemeral wetland in Western Australia over a two-year period to develop an understanding of strategies used to cope with wetting and drying cycles. Specifically, we categorised the movement sequences of individuals according to a pre-existing framework of among home-range movement developed from telemetry of several non-aestivating stream fishes. This framework provided a useful platform; however, it was necessary for us to expand the range of home-range behaviours to include aestivation and brumation and outside home-range behaviours to include nomadism and nesting migrations. Aestivation proved to be an especially important strategy for adult female turtles (95% of individuals) in the ephemeral wetland during two drying events. In addition to elevated female mortality associated with nesting behaviour, female turtle strategies for coping with extremes in climate and wetting-and drying particularly, warrant further research and management attention.