Baseline Wood Turtle (Glyptemys insculpta) Population Demography and Abundance Estimates at Long-term Monitoring Sites in West Virginia

Michelle Fonda¹, Kevin Oxenrider^2,*, and Donald J. Brown³

¹West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, 738 Ward Road, Elkins, WV 26241. ²West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, 1 Depot Street, Romney, WV 26757. ³US Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, 42218 NE Yale Bridge Road, Amboy, WA 98601. *Corresponding author.

Northeastern Naturalist, Volume 31, Special Issue 12: G110–G116

First published early online: 31 August 2024

Abstract
West Virginia is located at the southwestern edge of the geographic range of Glyptemys insculpta (Wood Turtle), and there are concerns that warming temperatures with climate change could result in a northward range retraction for the species. Increasing development and conversion of habitat to incompatible land uses may exacerbate this issue. Standardized population monitoring for Wood Turtles in West Virginia began in 2020. We collected population-survey data between the fall of 2020 and fall of 2022 at 5 long-term monitoring sites to estimate population demography and adult abundances. Across the 5 sites, we captured 162 unique individuals, including 48 adult females, 92 adult males, and 22 juveniles. Estimated site-level abundances varied from 72 to 147, but confidence intervals for the estimates were wide. The large number of Wood Turtles documented during surveys and high estimated abundances suggest that populations in West Virginia are currently more robust than many other regions across the species’ distribution. Our results provide baseline estimates for tracking long-term population responses to climate and land-use changes in West Virginia.

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