Jinelle Sperry Brett Alexander DeGregorio Ellery Lassiter 2023 <div class="section"><strong>Context</strong><p id="d6e170">Understanding the temporal and spatial scales at which wildlife move is vital for conservation and management. This is especially important for semi-aquatic species that make frequent inter-wetland movements to fulfil life-history requirements.</p></div><div class="section"><strong>Aims</strong><p id="d6e175">We aimed to investigate the drivers of movement and space-use of the imperilled spotted turtle (<i>Clemmys guttata</i>), a seasonal wetland specialist, in three large, isolated wetland complexes in Virginia, USA.</p></div><div class="section"><strong>Methods</strong><p id="d6e183">We used VHF radio-transmitters to radio-locate adult and juvenile turtles, and estimated movement and space-use during their active and aestivation seasons (March–August). We then used generalised linear mixed models to examine how movement and space-use varied, based on intrinsic turtle characteristics and extrinsic wetland and climatic factors.</p></div><div class="section"><strong>Key results</strong><p id="d6e188">We show that, on average, individual spotted turtles used five wetlands per year (range 3–13), and that their inter-wetland movement and movement distance varied seasonally in accordance with wetland availability and breeding phenology. Spotted turtle movement and space-use was influenced by the arrangement and size of the wetland complexes, with turtles moving further and occupying larger home-ranges as size and distance between wetlands increased. Inter-wetland movement was not influenced by intrinsic turtle effects but larger adult turtles moved further, used more wetlands, and had larger home-ranges than smaller turtles.</p></div><div class="section"><strong>Conclusions</strong><p id="d6e193">Turtle responses to variation in season and wetland configuration highlight the need for complex and dynamic landscapes required to sustain this species.</p></div><div class="section"><strong>Implications</strong><p id="d6e198">This study has important conservation implications showing that spotted turtles rely on a large number of diverse wetlands, as well as upland habitat, to fulfil their resource needs – and that these habitat associations vary seasonally. Results from our study can aid the understanding of spatial and temporal variation in patch characteristics (e.g. quality and extent) and inter-patch movement by organisms, which is critical for the conservation and management of semi-aquatic species and other organisms that occupy patchy habitat complexes.</p></div> application/pdf 10.1071/WR22107 en CSIRO Publishing Movement ecology of adult and juvenile spotted turtles (Clemmys guttata) in a seasonally dynamic environment article