Identifying Imperiled Reptile and Amphibian Preferred Habitat Characteristics, Habitat Use, and Movement

Conservation biology strives to protect species and their environment by using the best available science. Amphibians and reptiles have numerous highly imperiled taxa that are in need of conservation and restoration efforts, but their habitat preferences and movement data are often hard to obtain since they are frequently small and cryptic. The scarcity of this information on small species and young life stages creates large gaps in conservation plans. To address these gaps, I utilized GPS tags on immature gopher tortoises to document their home range sizes and movement metrics (Chapter 2). This approach revealed that home range sizes were 6x larger than those documented using less sophisticated methods. Additionally, I employed fluorescent powder to track the movement paths of the endangered Santa Cruz long-toed salamander (SCLTS) and identify their preferred microhabitat characteristics (Chapter 3). The research showed that SCLTS did not randomly emerge from ponds but preferred areas with greater tree cover and moister soils compared to random locations. Next, I quantified the amount of suitable and accessible terrestrial habitat across the range of the SCLTS (Chapter 4). This analysis revealed that only 55% of the habitat around breeding ponds, range-wide, was both suitable and accessible to the salamanders. Similarly, I determined the amount of suitable habitat for turtles within migration distances for a subset of ponds across Miami-Dade, as well as gathered species composition (via mark and recapture methods of turtles) and water quality data in these ponds to figure out what were the most important habitat characteristics (Chapter 5). For the final Chapter (Chapter 6), I investigated the relationship between young gopher tortoise growth and habitat by using vegetation surveys, drone data, and forage quality data. Collectively, my studies demonstrate various approaches and applications for integrating community, spatial, and movement ecology data to support biodiversity conservation, restoration, and management of herpetofauna.