dc.contributor.author	Le, Christopher, Hien
dc.coverage.spatial	Georgia	en_US
dc.coverage.temporal	2008-2024	en_US
dc.date.accessioned	2024-04-26T18:05:26Z
dc.date.available	2024-04-26T18:05:26Z
dc.date.issued	2024-02-02
dc.identifier.other	99fd3267-dbc8-4a2e-968b-865fc9ea4a02	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10428/7160
dc.description.abstract	The keystone and threatened status of the gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) makes them a species of interest for wildlife management. Two studies were conducted on gopher tortoises in south Georgia, USA. The first study assessed the survivability of 174 passive integrative transponder (PIT) tagged gopher tortoise hatchlings released in 2008 and 2009 at Reed Bingham State Park (RBSP), Cook County, Georgia. It was hypothesized that 10% (17/174) would be recaptured. From March 2020 to July 2021, release sites Gopher Tortoise Management Area and Pioneer Site were surveyed. Zero (N = 0) of the 174 PIT-tagged hatchling tortoises were recaptured. Suggestions for recapture failure were predation, human presence, detection difficulty, dispersal away from release sites, and Upper Respiratory Tract Disease. The second study analyzed movement activity of an adult male gopher tortoise utilizing Global Positioning System (GPS) technology at Moody Air Force Base, a military installation in Lowndes and Lanier Counties, Georgia. Movement was GPS-tracked from September 2020 to January 2021. GPS data contained location, temperature, and satellite-specific acquisition information. A total of 263 (N = 263) Fixed Locations (FL) were acquired. FL were analyzed for home range, core area, distance >300 m, and nocturnal movement (20:00 – 05:00). Home range increased 10-fold with increasing horizontal dilution of precision (HDOP) (range: 3.55 – 15.86 ha, HDOP ≤ 1.5 – 9.9), core area was 0.13 ha, greatest straight-line distance was 345 m, and 41 nocturnal events occurred. GPS unit troubleshooting and gopher tortoises’ fossorial nature attributed to early battery life depletion and FL accuracy and precision analysis. Most FL occurred in the core area; long distance movement outside the core area was exhibited five times, one included nocturnal movement. Suggestions for long distance movement were habitat quality, overwinter burrowing, reproduction, social interaction, and energy expenditure recovery.	en_US
dc.description.tableofcontents	BACKGROUND 1 I.I. Species Status 1 -- I.II. Habitat and Diet 2 -- SURVIVAL ASSESSMENT OF 2008-2009 GOPHER TORTOISE HATCHLINGS AT REED BINGHAM STATE PARK, COOK COUNTY, GEORGIA, USA 4 -- II.I. Introduction 4 -- II.I. I. Reproduction and Growth 4 -- II.I. II. Marking Techniques 5 -- II.II. Hypothesis 6 -- II.III. Materials and Methods 6 -- II.III. I. Study Site 6 -- II.III. II. Survey Method and Data Collection 8 -- II.IV. Results 9 -- II.V. Discussion 10 -- ANALYSIS OF GOPHER TORTOISE ACTIVITY ON MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, LOWNDES COUNTY, GEORGIA, USA 14 -- III.I. Introduction 14 -- III.I. I. Home Range, Movement, and Activity Patterns 14 -- III.I. II. GPS Technology and Applications in Wildlife Monitoring 16 -- III.II. Hypothesis 17 -- III.III. Materials and Methods 18 -- III.III. I. Study Site 18 -- III.III. II. GPS Backpack Installation and Tortoise Release 18 -- III.III. III. GPS Backpack Retrieval, Removal, Data Extraction and Analysis 20 -- III.IV. Results 22 -- III.V. Discussion 24 -- CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 33 -- LITERATURE CITED 35 -- LIST OF FIGURES 43 -- LIST OF TABLES 77	en_US
dc.format.extent	1 electronic record. PDF/A document, 124 pages, 38740952 bytes	en_US
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en_US
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.rights	This dissertation is protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94-553, revised in 1976). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgement. Use of the materials for financial gain with the author's expressed written permissions is not allowed.	en_US
dc.subject	Academic theses	en_US
dc.subject	Biology	en_US
dc.subject	Ecology	en_US
dc.subject	Gopher tortoise	en_US
dc.subject	Global Positioning System	en_US
dc.subject	Spatial ecology	en_US
dc.title	Survival assessment and movement analysis of gopher tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus) in south Georgia, USA	en_US
dc.type	Thesis	en_US
dc.contributor.department	Department of Biology of the College of Science and Mathematics	en_US
dc.description.advisor	Lockhart, Jack
dc.description.committee	Grabarczyk, Erin
dc.description.committee	Safer, Adam
dc.description.degree	M.S.	en_US
dc.description.major	Biology	en_US