Fine- and Coarse-Scale Movements and Habitat Use by Wood Turtles (Glyptemys insculpta) Based on Probabilistic Modeling of Radio- and GPS-Telemetry Data

Understanding animal movement and habitat use is critical for the delineation of habitat requiring protection for species at risk. Defining critical habitat requires studies with observations at a fine enough scale to reflect how animals use and move among habitats and include enough individuals to generalize findings to the population. We present results of a multi-year study on 48 adult Wood Turtles (Glyptemys insculpta (LeConte, 1830)) from two different populations monitored with low frequency radio-telemetry and high frequency GPS-telemetry. Results demonstrated the propensity for conventional radio-telemetry to underestimate cumulative distances moved and overestimate the amount of habitat used by Wood Turtles. Together the two datasets demonstrate the propensity for Wood Turtles to remain in close proximity to the river and that some differences in habitat use occur between the sexes, males tended to move parallel whereas females moved perpendicular to the river. The GPS-telemetry data provided a r...