Abstract

Abstract The recent invasion of Dasypus novemcinctus (nine-banded armadillo) into the southeastern United States has brought it into contact with a native burrowing chelonian, Gopherus polyphemus (Gopher Tortoise), whose burrows it usurps. Because the Gopher Tortoise is listed as vulnerable by IUCN (1996), baseline data on burrows of armadillos might improve our understanding of the impact of this introduced mammal on this reptile. Armadillo burrows were counted in a stratified random sample of 4 major habitats at Avon Park Air Force Range, FL. Data on spatial distributions of the burrows in all habitats fit the negative binomial distribution, indicating clumping. Burrow density in pine habitats was more than twice that of oak hammock, sand pine, or oak scrub. Likelihood-ratio tests combined with Akaike's Information Criteria showed that the best model was one in which the dispersion parameter (k) did not vary but the parameter for the arithmetic mean (m) did.

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