BioOne.org will be down briefly for maintenance on 17 December 2024 between 18:00-22:00 Pacific Time US. We apologize for any inconvenience.
How to translate text using browser tools
1 March 2017 Postbreeding Movements in Marbled Newts (Caudata, Salamandridae): A Comparative Radiotracking Study in Two Habitat Types
Audrey Trochet, Hugo Le Chevalier, Olivier Calvez, Laurent Barthe, Francis Isselin-Nondedeu, Damien Picard, Mélanie Debelgarric, Ninon Pégourié, Rozenn Rocher, Alexandre Ribéron
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

The maintenance of gene flow and colonization of new areas are influenced by an organism's movements in the landscape. Movement favors genetic mixing and limits inbreeding risk, hence decreasing the risk of extinction. Movement is a multifactorial process, however, and might be influenced by both individual traits and environmental factors. Studying the influence of individual characteristics and landscape features on movement is becoming an important challenge in evolutionary ecology and conservation biology, especially among threatened species such as amphibians. In a low-disperser species (Triturus marmoratus), we expected differences in movement ability to vary with individual traits, such as body length, as well as features of the landscape. On the basis of radiotracking surveys in both forests and agricultural lands, we revealed that landscape features and climatic conditions influenced the distances traveled by newts. Moreover, the individual traits, and particularly the body length and the hind-limb length, were also important factors explaining movement patterns in Marbled Newts. Highlighting such movement-related traits in a salamander species could improve estimates of movement potential based on morphological traits. Our results can assist in recommendations for conservation plans of the Marbled Newts, and more generally of amphibians.

© 2017 by The Herpetologists' League, Inc.
Audrey Trochet, Hugo Le Chevalier, Olivier Calvez, Laurent Barthe, Francis Isselin-Nondedeu, Damien Picard, Mélanie Debelgarric, Ninon Pégourié, Rozenn Rocher, and Alexandre Ribéron "Postbreeding Movements in Marbled Newts (Caudata, Salamandridae): A Comparative Radiotracking Study in Two Habitat Types," Herpetologica 73(1), 1-9, (1 March 2017). https://doi.org/10.1655/Herpetologica-D-15-00072
Accepted: 1 September 2016; Published: 1 March 2017
KEYWORDS
body length
dispersal
Heterogeneous landscapes
leg length
morphology
Triturus marmoratus
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission
Back to Top