Thesis (M.A.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2008. / Thesis advisor: Barbara Nicholson. "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Biological Sciences." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 32-34). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--Marshall University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Includes abstract. Document formatted into pages: contains viii, 88 p. Includes bibliographical references p. 80-88.

The Eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina) is one of the most common reptiles in North America, but is soon to be threatened due to increased urbanization, disease, and the pet and food trades. In order to assist resource managers in choosing suitable sites for relocation studies, more information on the winter ecology of this species is necessary. We examined the temperature tolerance, microhabitat and degree of philopatry to hibernacula for juvenile and adult E. box turtles for two consecutive winters in Charles City Co, VA. The turtles were tracked via radio telemetry to record point locations during the active and inactive seasons. iButton data loggers were attached to each turtle to record temperature throughout winter. Vegetation data were collected and analyzed to determine if there are microhabitat differences between adult and juvenile turtles, and between occupied and random plots. Philopatry to wintering hibernacula was determined by measurements in the field and using ArcGIS. Adults had significantly higher minimum temperatures than juveniles during the first winter (P=0.027), but not during the second winter (P=0.327). Shrub and canopy cover were marginally higher for random plots than for occupied turtle hibernacula plots (P=0.066 and P=0.092, respectively); however there were no significant differences for any of the vegetation variables between adults and juveniles. Some of the turtles demonstrated site fidelity of their hibernacula. The temperature data from this study suggests that juveniles may have poorer hibernacula selection and therefore lower minimum temperatures compared with adults, but this was not seen in our second season suggesting that juvenile turtles may learn to choose better hibernacula or to dig deeper. The difference in findings for the two winters could be attributed to illness by several of the turtles the first winter, by increased maturity in the juveniles the second winter or by the significant difference in ambient temperature for the two winters (P=0.0001). Juveniles do not differ from adults in microhabitat selection, therefore resource managers may not need to plan differently for juveniles and adults in relocation studies. We also conclude that both age groups of T. c. carolina exhibit site fidelity of hibernacula.

Box turtle (Terrapene carolina) populations have been declining over the last several decades, and one major cause is increasing urbanization. As a result of habitat fragmentation, wildlife managers are frequently turning to new and alternative management strategies. Traditional box turtle management has included relocation, which has been met with limited success. This study aims to combine these strategies with another less-studied one: forcing turtles to overwinter on site by penning them in an outdoor enclosure. Two sets of juvenile box turtles were released at the Virginia Commonwealth University Rice Center: one penned on site in a pen for one year, the other allowed to move freely. Our objective was to compare a variety of factors between these two groups to see if penning was as effective as traditional approaches. Movement and location patterns were tracked using radio transmitters for two years and analyzed using GPS technology. Body condition and health status of all turtles were measured and compared over time as well. Finally, a life history model was developed to determine the effectiveness of management programs. While the penning treatment significantly reduced activity areas, it appears that all juvenile turtles had high site fidelity (87.5%) regardless of treatment. The eastern box turtle seems to be a prime candidate for penning used in conjunction with other management options.

Thesis (M.S.)--North Carolina State University, 2003. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Dec. 18, 2005). Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references.

There are more than 300 species of extant turtles, the majority of which belong to the Testudinoidea. Here I describe a new box turtle from the Eocene-Oligocene boundary of west Texas. This specimen impacts the phylogeny of Testudinoid turtles by pulling the divergence of extant Testudinoid turtles back in time approximately 25 million years. This results in a need to refocus on paleontological research of Testudinoid turtles into the late Paleogene and early Neogene to identify fossil localities and specimens that can help further elucidate the evolution of the group. New work on the fossil record of turtles also requires a re-evaluation of methods used for identifying and evaluating the evolutionary history of turtles as a group. An implicit assumption over the last 150 years of turtle paleontology was that both turtle shells and turtle heads reveal congruent and complimentary evolutionary relationships. This assumption was never adequately tested. I utilized a series of methods to evaluate the congruency of phylogenetic hypotheses using disparate anatomical regions. Using a dataset of extant Emydid turtles, I evaluated whether turtle shells and turtle heads provided congruent and complimentary phylogenetic hypotheses. My methods employed parsimony-based reconstruction, maximum-likelihood-based reconstruction, and Bayesian-based reconstruction, including Bayesian-partition analyses. My conclusions are that heads and shells do not provide fully congruent topologies, and that in many cases there is a loss of phylogenetic resolution when only turtle sklls are used to generate phylogenies. The implication is that a focus on a robust and complete dataset of anatomical features will provide the best basis for further investigation of fossils. My work also provides a framework for dataset exploration by providing a method to identify the most robust phylogenetic signal found within a dataset. This framework will allow non-turtle paleontologists and systematists the ability to further investigate their own datasets and develop robust hypotheses of evolutionary relationships across the diversity of the tree of Life. / text

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Box turtle (Terrapene carolina) populations are steadily declining due their unique natural history, effects of climate change, and anthropogenic land use change. There is a need for updated information on box turtle space and micro and macro-habitat use to inform conservation efforts. This study used VHF radiotelemetry and GPS data loggers to examine box turtle space and habitat use in North Texas. Box turtle home range sizes averaged 6.6ha (range = 0.79 - 18.08, n = 23), and males (n = 9) had larger home ranges than females (n = 14; W = 31.5, P = 0.05). Home range size was best explained by a combination of variables including sex and body size, but overall, home ranges that consisted of higher percentages of suitable box turtle habitat were smaller. Box turtles used deciduous forest more than expected and wetlands less than expected by chance (Fisher's exact test, P < 0.0001). The most informative variable for box turtle macrohabitat selection was NDVI. Box turtles selected microhabitats with a higher percent litter (t = -2.16, P < 0.05) and understory cover (t = -5.03, P < 0.05). The results of CART analysis showed the nested importance of macro- and microhabitat and identified NDVI as the most important variable for predicting suitable box turtle habitat. Given these results, we postulate that NDVI can be used to identify suitable box turtle habitat at landscape scales to aid in management and conservation efforts. We found that three-toed box turtles are using habitat differently than what has been reported in eastern box turtles, providing support for the theory that three-toed box turtles should be classified as a separate species.

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