Increasing the chance of successful translocation of a threatened lizard

Abstract

AbstractMany reptile translocations fail, and they fail largely because the translocated individuals are faced with low habitat quality at the recipient site and/or disperse away from it. At least some failures may be forestalled by developing clear goals and success criteria, having a better understanding of the species' biology and the threats it faces, ensuring the quality of the site to which individuals are being moved and following through with long‐term monitoring. We incorporated these considerations into a translocation that moved more than 500 individuals of the threatened Florida sand skink Plestiodon reynoldsi Stejneger from a site slated for mining to an apparently suitable, but unoccupied site. Translocated individuals were placed into enclosures at the recipient site at densities similar to those at the donor site. Environmental conditions were varied within the enclosures in a replicated design, to tease out the conditions that promote successful colonization by translocated individuals. Overall success of the translocation will be judged by population viability, but we also set two benchmarks (initial survival and reproduction; completion of the life cycle through subsequent recruitment of offspring) to monitor progress. So far, we have monitored the translocated individuals long enough to determine that they have survived and are reproducing. Modeling of the influence of the environment on successful establishment suggests that soil and light conditions are important influences, but in a complex way that implicates the overriding importance of habitat heterogeneity. The Florida sand skink appears to be a resilient species that exploits the available habitat heterogeneity to find suitable microhabitats, and we suggest that these characteristics of the habitat and species contributed to its successful meeting of the first benchmark. These characteristics may contribute to successful translocation of xeric reptiles in general.