Habitat selection and movement ecology of Eastern Hermann's tortoises in a rural Romanian landscape

Abstract

Understanding wildlife movements and habitat selection are critical to drafting conservation and manage- ment plans. We studied a population of eastern Hermann's tortoise (Testudo hermanni boettgeri) in a traditionally man- aged rural landscape in Romania, near the northern edge of the species geographic distribution. We used telemetry to radio-track 24 individuals between 2005 and 2008 and performed a Euclidian distance-based habitat selection anal- ysis to investigate habitats preferred by tortoises at both landscapes (second-order order selection) and individual (third-order selection) home range scales. The home range size for tortoises in our study area was 3.79±0.62 ha and did not differ by gender or season (pre- and post-nesting sea- sons). Their movement ecology was characterized by short- distance movements (daily mean031.18±1.59 m), appar- ently unaffected by habitat type. In contrast to other studies, movements of males and females were of similar magni- tude. At the landscape (population home range) scale, grass- lands and shrubs were preferred, but tortoises also showed affinity to forest edges. At the individual home range scale, tortoises selected grassland and shrub habitats, avoided for- ests, and used forest edges randomly. Creeks were avoided at both spatial scales. Our results suggest that tortoise home ranges contain well-defined associations of habitats despite a higher selection for grasslands. As such, avoiding land conversion to other uses and maintaining habitat heteroge- neity through traditional practices (e.g., manual mowing of grasslands, livestock grazing) are critical for the persistence of tortoise populations.