Hibernation in Reeves' Turtles () in Qichun County, Hubei Province, China: Hibernation Beginning and End and Habitat Selection.

Animals (Basel)

Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Ecology of Tropical Islands, College of Life Sciences, Hainan Normal University, Haikou 571158, China.

Published: September 2022

AI Article Synopsis

  • * Conducted in late 2021 through early 2022, the study tracked 20 wild turtles using radiotelemetry, revealing hibernation preferences and site locations, including various aquatic and terrestrial habitats.
  • * Findings showed that Reeves' turtles prefer hibernating in areas with specific features, such as high herbage cover and soft edges, providing important insights for conservation strategies related to farming impacts.

Article Abstract

Hibernation protects turtles from extreme winter conditions. Reeves' turtle () is a medium-sized aquatic turtle that lives in freshwater habitats in lowland areas with still or slowly moving water. Currently, little is known regarding its overwintering behavior. In the current study, 20 Reeves' turtles from the wild were investigated using radiotelemetry in the field to determine the beginning and end dates of, and habitat selected for, hibernation. Hibernation began in late October 2021 and arousal began in March 2022. Reeves' turtles do not appear to be limited in their selection of suitable hibernation habitats, which included fish ponds, abandoned ponds (ponds not being used for farming), marshes, and abandoned fields (fields not being used for farming). In the aquatic hibernation habitats, only herbage cover was significantly different between the selected and random habitats ( = 2.525, = 9, = 0.033). In the terrestrial hibernation habitats, there were significant differences in the canopy ( = -2.201, = 0.028), slope gradient ( = -2.032, = 0.042), herbage cover ( = -2.379, = 0.017), and distance from the habitat edge ( = -2.524, = 0.012) between the selected and random habitats. This indicates that Reeves' turtles prefer to hibernate at the soft edges of flat habitats with low canopy and high herbage cover when hibernating in terrestrial habitats and prefer to hibernate at sites with high herbage cover when hibernating in aquatic habitats. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate hibernation in wild Reeves' turtles in the field, and the results identify key ecological variables correlated with habitat selection during hibernation. This knowledge could inform local conservation measures related to farming activities.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9495146PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani12182411DOI Listing

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