Landscape composition weakly predicts wetland occupancy by Blanding’s turtles ( Emydoidea blandingii Holbrook, 1838)

Patterns of spatial occurrence in animals are largely a function of landscape composition and configuration. Studying habitat selection at the landscape scale allows the identification of habitat features that favour long-term survival of animal populations. We tested the hypothesis that wetland occupancy by Blanding’s turtles, Emydoidea blandingii, in southern Quebec is related to landscape composition. We conducted visual surveys at 110 wetlands to document occupancy and we measured landscape composition around surveyed wetlands. We used boosted regression trees (BRT) to model the probability of occurrence of Blanding’s turtles based on land use, road density, and wetland size. Blanding’s turtles were more likely to occupy areas with high wetland density, but the BRT model did not fit the presence/absence data well. Therefore, we could not confidently predict wetland occupancy patterns from our six landscape composition variables. Blanding’s turtles in our study area do not seem constrained to high quality sites: turtles occupy areas disturbed by agriculture in a slightly urbanized landscape. Management of the species should focus on protecting sites of documented occurrence with an abundance of wetlands and sufficient suitable habitat to cover seasonal movement patterns.