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The relationships between Mycoplasma agassizii, a causative agent of upper respiratory disease (URTD), and desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), generally illustrate the complexities of disease dynamics in wild vertebrate populations. In this review, we summarize current understanding of URTD in Mojave desert tortoise populations, we illustrate how inadequate knowledge of tortoise immune systems may obfuscate assessment of disease, and we suggest approaches to future management of URTD in desert tortoise populations. We challenge the view that M. agassizii causes consistent levels of morbidity and/or mortality across the Mojave desert. Instead, URTD may be described more accurately as a context-dependent disease....
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation,
Journal Citation;
Tags: Biological Conservation,
Conservation,
Desert tortoise,
Epidemiology,
Natural antibody,
In the Sonoran Desert of North America, populations of the desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) occur in rocky foothills throughout southwestern Arizona and northwestern Mexico. Although tortoise populations appear to be isolated from each other by low desert valleys, individuals occasionally move long distances between populations. Increasingly, these movements are hindered by habitat fragmentation due to anthropogenic landscape changes. We used molecular techniques and radiotelemetry to examine movement patterns of desert tortoises in southern Arizona. We collected blood samples from 170 individuals in nine mountain ranges and analyzed variability in seven microsatellite loci to determine genetic differentiation...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation,
Journal Citation;
Tags: Conservation Genetics,
Gopherus agassizii,
conservation,
desert tortoise,
gene flow,
1. 1. Deep body and shell surface temperatures were monitored via radio-telemetry from unrestrained desert tortoises in their natural habitat. 2. 2. The surface of the carapace acts as a buffer against solar radiation, resulting in deep body temperatures up to 10�C below shell surface at the time of the midday retreat to burrows. 3. 3. The burrow of the desert tortoise provides the only ambient temperatures at ground level which are below the lethal range for this species during midday hours. 4. 4. Evening retreat to burrows permits an extension of higher body temperatures into the mid-evening hours. 5. 5. The use of evening burrow retreats lessens in mid-summer. This behavioral change results in lower body temperatures...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation,
Journal Citation;
Tags: Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology,
Desert tortoise,
Gopherus agassizii,
burrow system,
radiotelemetry,
Egg production by desert tortoises was estimated at two sites in San Bernardino, California: Ivanpah Valley in 1980 and 1981 and Goffs in 1983, 1984 and 1985. Mean clutch frequencies were estimated for 1980 (1.60) and 1981 (1.10) from mass changes observed among sexually mature females weighed every 1-2 wk. Mean clutch frequencies in 1983 (1.89), 1984 (1.57) and 1985 (1.75) were estimated from periodic X-rays of females. Clutch sizes were also determined from radiographs. Tortoises at Goffs typically laid 1-2 clutches during May and June, but one female failed to lay eggs in 1984 and single tortoises laid three clutches in 1983 and 1985. If tortoises laid two clutches, the second was faintly visible in X-rays within...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation,
Journal Citation;
Tags: Clutch frequency,
Clutch size,
Desert tortoise,
Egg production,
Hatching success,
We constructed minimum convex polygon (MCP) home ranges for free-ranging desert tortoises from a natural population adjacent to the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center, near Las Vegas, NV. Home range area estimates were not significantly different from those estimated for other desert tortoises in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. Male tortoises had significantly larger and more variable home ranges in a combined statistical analysis of this study with those of Burge (1977) and Barrett (1990). Bootstrap analysis of the MCP polygon areas suggested substantial autocorrelation of the tortoise sightings despite a mean interval between recaptures of 3.2 days, violating an assumption of nearly all home range estimation...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation,
Journal Citation;
Tags: Desert tortoise,
Herpetological Monographs,
Home range,
Minimum convex polygon,
Testudinidae
The desert tortoise Gopherus agassizii is federally listed as Threatened because of documented declines in some populations, yet the proximate causes of these declines are not well understood. With use of radiotelemetry, I monitored a total of 55 individual tortoises at two Mojave Desert sites over three years. Both populations suffered high adult mortality during an extreme drought period, but the temporal pattern and inferred proximate causes of mortality differed between sites. At the eastern Mojave site, no telemetered tortoises died in 1988 or 1989, but 41% died in 1990. All nine carcasses were found and only one showed any evidence of predation or scavenging. Tortoises that died had symptoms of dehydration...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation,
Journal Citation;
Tags: Biological Conservation,
Gopherus agassizii,
Mojave Desert,
desert tortoise,
mortality,
Habitat modeling offers an approach to understanding some management problems of desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) and to focusing new research efforts. Modeling can provide (1) a method to organize existing information, (2) a means to identify whether physical habitat or some factor outside the scope of the habitat model is limiting populations, (3) a method to integrate habitat into resource development planning, and (4) a mechanism for focusing research on missing species-habitat information. Published in Herpetologica, volume 42, issue 1, on pages 134 - 138, in 1986.
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation,
Journal Citation;
Tags: Desert tortoise,
Gopherus agassizii,
Habitat model,
Habitat quality,
Herpetologica,
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