LE3 .A278 2011

2011

Herman, Tom
Mockford, Steve

Acadia University

Master of Science

Masters

Biology

Biology

The artificial incubation of eggs and headstarting, the captive rearing of hatchlings collected from the wild and their subsequent release to natural habitats, have been used to address the decline of turtle populations. Although, these conservation practices are manipulative and remain controversial, little is known of their effectiveness. This thesis provides an evaluation of the headstarting program for Blanding’s turtles in Nova Scotia by 1) comparing the post-release survival, growth, and movement patterns of headstarted and wild juveniles, and 2) examining the effects of incubation temperature on hatching success, hatchling morphology, and post-hatching growth and their implications for the headstarting program. Headstarted and wild juveniles had similar survival, growth, and movement patterns following release. These findings suggest that headstarted juveniles were able to adapt to release environments and display behaviours similar to those of wild juveniles. However, the post-release analysis presented here is not sufficient to determine the success of the headstarting program for Blanding’s turtles in Nova Scotia. The ultimate goal of headstarting is to increase juvenile recruitment; however, this can only be assessed once headstarted juveniles reach sexual maturity (17-24 yr for Blanding’s turtles in Nova Scotia). All temperature treatments examined here (27.0, 28.0, and 28.5 0.4°C; 28.5, 29.0, 29.5, and 30.0 0.7°C) yielded high hatching success and high post-hatching survival. Therefore, these incubation environments appear suitable for headstarting Blanding’s turtles in Nova Scotia. Fluctuating temperature and near-constant mean temperature influenced hatchling size; however, these effects disappeared by 19 months of age in captivity. Therefore, mean and fluctuating incubation temperature do not appear to affect size at release. Future research should examine the effects of mean and fluctuating temperature on other fitness-related traits

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:176