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Fig. 4 in Stopped Dead in Their Tracks: The Impact of Railways on Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) Movement and Behavior

Fig. 4. Principal component analysis (PCA) with 95% confidence ellipses comparing tortoise behavior expressed over a one-hour observation period. Confidence ellipse fills are based on railway familiarity in addition to the control group. Control tortoises fall well outside the multivariate space of tortoises placed in the railway, demonstrating the inability of tortoises to cross railways.

Fig. 2 in Stopped Dead in Their Tracks: The Impact of Railways on Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) Movement and Behavior

Fig. 2. (A) The trench dug underneath the rails and between the railway ties. A game camera faces the entrance/exit on the west side of the railway to photograph Gopher Tortoises passing from one side to the other. (B) A series of pictures of a single Gopher Tortoise moving from the east side of the tracks to the west side.

Fig. 1 in Stopped Dead in Their Tracks: The Impact of Railways on Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) Movement and Behavior

Fig. 1. (A) The 20 m railway plot in which Gopher Tortoises were tested for crossing ability and behavioral differences between Habituated (n ¼ 12) and Naïve (n ¼ 12) railway familiarity. (B) The control plot in which tortoises (n ¼ 12) were tested for crossing ability and behavioral differences solely on the presence of a visual barrier.

Fig. 3 in Stopped Dead in Their Tracks: The Impact of Railways on Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) Movement and Behavior

Fig. 3. (A) Three simulated correlated random walks (CRWs) by a single tortoise (ID: 5233) confined to the coastal strand habitat. Each simulation is a different patterned line with the start point designated by the triangle (m) and the stop points designated by squares (&). Each simulation counted the number of times the tortoise crossed the railway (represented by the thick dotted line). (B) Histogram of the number of expected railway crosses based on 1000 simulated CRWs by a single tortoise (ID: 5233). The observed number of crosses is plotted with the dotted line and is significantly below the expected number of crosses.

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FIG. 1 in Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) Vertebrate Burrow Commensals within a Private, Working Forest Landscape

FIG. 1. Number of unique observations of vertebrate burrow commensals by taxonomic group (top left), reptile and amphibian species (top right), bird species (bottom left), and mammal species (bottom right). Vertebrate burrow commensal data were collected in a private, working forest landscape dominated by planted Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda) stands located in the Upper Coastal Plain ecoregion of Georgia, USA from 2018– 2019.

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FIG. 3 in Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) Vertebrate Burrow Commensals within a Private, Working Forest Landscape

FIG. 3. Three axes of non-metric multidimensional scaling of the vertebrate commensal community across abandoned (blue), active (yellow), and inactive (gray) Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) burrows. Species detected are represented by the black points. Vertebrate burrow commensal data were collected in a private, working forest landscape dominated by planted Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda) stands located in the Upper Coastal Plain ecoregion of Georgia, USA from 2018–2019.

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FIG. 2 in Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) Vertebrate Burrow Commensals within a Private, Working Forest Landscape

FIG. 2. Rarefaction curves of species richness during 2018 and 2019. Vertebrate burrow commensal data were collected in a private, working forest landscape dominated by planted Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda) stands located in the Upper Coastal Plain ecoregion of Georgia, USA from 2018–2019.

FIG. 3 in Burrow Characteristics and Habitat Associations of Gopher Tortoises in Urban Pine Rockland Reserves (Miami, Florida, USA)

FIG. 3. Characteristics of Gopher Tortoise burrows at two sites in Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA. (A) Polar plots for Gopher Tortoise burrow orientations. There was no trend in direction of burrow opening at either site. (B) Burrow openings were wider at Zoo Miami than at the Deering Estate, and in both sites active burrows were wider than inactive burrows. (C) Burrows were far longer at the Deering Estate than at Zoo Miami, and active burrows were far longer than inactive burrows at both sites.

FIG. 2 in Burrow Characteristics and Habitat Associations of Gopher Tortoises in Urban Pine Rockland Reserves (Miami, Florida, USA)

FIG. 2. The two pine rockland sites included in this study are Zoo Miami (A) and the Deering Estate (B). The locations of tortoise burrows sampled in this study and random sampling points are indicated on each map. Zoo Miami is surrounded by adjacent pineland preserves and by extensive urban development. The Deering Estate is bounded by Biscayne Bay to the east and extensive urban development to the north and west. Representative habitats are shown from Zoo Miami (C) and the Deering Estate (D).

FIG. 4 in Burrow Characteristics and Habitat Associations of Gopher Tortoises in Urban Pine Rockland Reserves (Miami, Florida, USA)

FIG. 4. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) plots illustrating differences among sampling point types. (A) Differences in habitat features between burrows and random points. (B) Differences in habitat features between two sites—Deering or Zoo Miami. While there is considerable overlap among point types, there are significant differences in habitat variables measured between point types (burrows and random points) and between sites (Zoo Miami and the Deering Estate).

FIG. 1 in Burrow Characteristics and Habitat Associations of Gopher Tortoises in Urban Pine Rockland Reserves (Miami, Florida, USA)

FIG. 1. Locations of two study sites (A, Zoo Miami and B, Deering Estate) in this study within the context of the larger global extent of the Miami pine rocklands and the range of the Gopher Tortoise. The inset at upper left indicates the geographic range of the Gopher Tortoise in the southeastern United States, and the red box in the inset indicates the extent of the main map. The larger map illustrates Miami-Dade County, and the historic and current distribution of the pine rocklands. Inset boxes show the two study sites.

FIG. 3 in On the Road Again: Assessing the Use of Roadsides as Wildlife Corridors for Gopher Tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus)

FIG. 3. (A) Log-scaled minimum convex polygon (MCP) home ranges compared between habitat types (i.e., ruderal corridors, inland scrub, and coastal strand). Corridor tortoises occupied slightly smaller home ranges but were not significantly different because of the large variance seen in their home ranges. Inland home ranges were obtained from Smith et al. (1997). (B) Log-scaled average distances traveled between tracking events (m) compared between habitat types (i.e., ruderal corridors, coastal strand) but excluding inland scrub for which the data were unavailable. Average distances were not significantly different between habitat types.

FIG. 2 in On the Road Again: Assessing the Use of Roadsides as Wildlife Corridors for Gopher Tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus)

FIG. 2. Details of the two distinct sites within Kennedy Space Center, USA, used for the different parts of this study where (A) and (B) correlate to the study sites outlined in Figure 1. (A) Map of the study site where current roadside corridor use was determined via radiotelemetry of tortoises captured along the roads. Eight example minimum convex polygon (MCP) home ranges are colored showing movement confined to areas along the corridor but no movement directly through the corridor. Tortoise 5221 was the only individual observed moving from the corridor to coastal strand habitat over a distance of 500 m. (B) Map of the study site where we assessed the feasibility of roadsides to function as movement corridors. We translocated tortoises (dotted colored lines) from either inland or coastal habitat into the potential corridor. Daily radiotelemetry (solid colored lines) determined if tortoises used corridors rather than straight-line paths to return to their original home range.

FIG. 1 in On the Road Again: Assessing the Use of Roadsides as Wildlife Corridors for Gopher Tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus)

FIG. 1. Map of Gopher Tortoise range highlighting their conservation status in different parts of their range. Included is an outline of the study site at Kennedy Space Center, USA, with the potential roadside corridors connecting coastal and inland habitat outlined in black. We conducted both parts of this study along two different roads (boxed and labeled). Details of these two distinct sites appear in Figure 2. Box (A) is the study site for examining current roadside corridors use using radiotelemetry to determine how Gopher Tortoises in this region spatially used the roadsides. Box (B) is the study site for translocating tortoises along the roadside to determine if movement through the corridor back to their original home range was feasible.

FIG. 4 in On the Road Again: Assessing the Use of Roadsides as Wildlife Corridors for Gopher Tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus)

FIG. 4. An example rose diagram (circular histogram) of a single inland tortoise's (ID: 5250) direction of travel when the distance traveled was>7 m. The Rayleigh test of directional uniformity displayed insignificance in the directional movement for both true and corridor homing.