Habitat quality of restored wetlands in agricultural systems for freshwater turtles

Abstract

Freshwater turtles are important components of wetland ecosystems, but few studies have assessed the quality of created and restored wetlands for turtles. We determined whether habitat characteristics and abundance, body condition, adult sex ratio, and mean adult size of two turtle species, Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta) and Snapping Turtles (Chelydra serpentina), differed between 16 restored and 16 reference wetlands in West Virginia, USA, and quantified the influence of habitat characteristics on abundance and body condition. At each wetland, we measured habitat characteristics and sampled turtle populations using hoop-net traps. We found that habitat characteristics were similar between the restored and reference wetlands and found no difference in abundance for either species between wetland types. Painted Turtle abundance was positively associated with the number of surrounding wetlands and amount of emergent vegetation cover around the periphery of the wetlands and negatively associated with density of surrounding roads. Snapping Turtle abundance was positively associated with water conductivity and dissolved oxygen. We found no difference in body condition between wetland types for Snapping Turtles but did find evidence that body condition was lower in restored wetlands for Painted Turtles. This result appeared to be driven by a negative relationship between body condition and the number of surrounding wetlands. We found no difference in mean body size between wetland types, but adult sex ratio differed for Painted Turtles. Overall, our study indicates that habitat quality of restored wetlands in West Virginia for our focal species was similar to surrounding wetlands associated with agricultural land.

Citation

Brown, Donald J.; Gulette, Alissa L.; Baker, Jami M.; Hatton, Joseph; Anderson, James T. 2024. Habitat quality of restored wetlands in agricultural systems for freshwater turtles. Herpetological Conservation and Biology. 19(2):189–207.