Heard in the News
Heard in the News
Global Bd Mapping Project Update --- January 2008
This is an update to the project initiated about one year ago, to compile information on the global distribution of Bd. A brief summary of the project was provided in April 2007. Here, we report on our findings for data compiled up until November 2007, and presented at the Bd Conference in Tempe, Arizona.
Trends in Sex Ratios of Turtles in the United States: Implications of Road Mortality
James P. Gibbs* And David A. Steen+
Conservation Biology
Volume 19 Issue 2 Page 552 - April 2005
Affiliations
State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 350 Illick Hall, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY 13210, U.S.A.
Correspondence
*email
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Current address: Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center, Route 2, Box 2324, Newton, GA 39870, U.S.A.
Abstract:
Road mortality has been implicated as a significant demographic force in turtles, particularly for females, which are killed disproportionately on overland nesting movements. Moreover, the United States' road network has expanded dramatically over the last century. We therefore predicted that historical trends in sex ratios of turtle populations would be male biased. To test this prediction, we synthesized published estimates of population-level sex ratios in freshwater and terrestrial turtles in the United States (165 estimates for 36 species, published 1928-2003). Our analysis suggests that the proportion of males in populations has increased linearly (p= 0.001); the trend in male bias is synchronized with the expansion of the surfaced portion of the road network since 1930; sex ratios became more male biased in states with higher densities of roads; and populations have become more male biased in aquatic species, in which movement differentials between males and females are greatest, and are least biased in semiaquatic and terrestrial species, in which overland movements are more comparable between sexes. Our results suggest an ongoing depletion of breeding females from wild turtle populations over the last century because of many factors, including, and perhaps chiefly, road mortality.
Turtle investigation snags Corning man
by Amy Theriac
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
James Stout pleaded guilty to 10 counts of selling wildlife and four counts
of selling alligator snapping turtles Aug. 23 in Clay County Circuit Court,
and was fined $14,000.
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