Annual vs. multiple-year home range sizes of individual Blanding's Turtles, Emydoidea blandingii, in Central Wisconsin

Abstract

Most studies of home ranges occur over short time periods and may not represent the spacial requirements of long-lived organisms such as turtles. Home ranges of 18 individual Blanding's Turtles (Emydoidea blandingii) were measured using minimum convex polygons. Annual space use was compared to multi-year space use by individual turtles. We found a sig-nificant difference between annual home range size (25.5 hectares) and multi-year (two to six years) home range size (65.7 hectares; n = 18, P = 0.016). Caution should be employed when making management decisions based on short-term studies of long lived species.