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Navigating agricultural landscapes: responses of critically endangered giant tortoises to farmland vegetation and infrastructure

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Abstract

Context

Interactions between wildlife and anthropogenic infrastructure, such as roads, fences, and dams, can influence wildlife movement, and potentially cause human-wildlife conflict. In the Galapagos archipelago, two species of critically endangered giant tortoise encounter infrastructure and human-modified vegetation in farms, which could influence movement choices.

Objectives

We investigated factors influencing tortoise movement and habitat selection in the agricultural landscape of Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos.

Methods

We examined the movement of 27 tortoises collected using GPS tracking between 2014 and 2020,  in relation to the location of vegetation, ponds, fences, and roads.

Results

We found that tortoises preferred pasture over native vegetation, but there was little difference among their preferences for native vegetation, crops, or invasive vegetation.   Tortoises also travelled slower in pasture, and faster in invasive vegetation, compared to crops and native vegetation. Tortoises were more likely to be found closer to ponds than predicted by chance. Our results indicated that most fences were porous to tortoises, with limited impact on their movement. Tortoises were more likely to use areas near roads with low-traffic.

Conclusions

Pastures, and ponds are important habitat for tortoises in farms and are likely to be used preferentially by tortoises. Overall, fences and roads did not strongly obstruct tortoise movements, however, this may lead to potential injury to tortoises on roads and property damage for farmers. To best identify priority areas for managing wildlife on farms, we recommend evaluating the combined effects of multiple anthropogenic landscape features on wildlife movements.

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Data availability

Movement and vegetation data are accessible through Movebank and Remote Sensing, the remaining data will be archived in Dryad.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Winifred Violet Scott Charitable Trust and a Prestige Research Training Program awarded to KP and a United States National Science Foundation. (DEB 1258062) grant awarded to SB. We thank the Galapagos National Park Directorate, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Charles Darwin Foundation, Galapagos Science Center, Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior, Saint Louis Zoo Institute for Conservation Medicine, e-obs GmbH, National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration, National Geographic Society Global Exploration Fund, Galapagos Conservation Trust, Zurich Zoo, Houston Zoo, Swiss Friends of Galapagos, The Woodspring Trust, British Chelonian Group for their support.  We thank the numerous Galapagos landowners who allowed field teams to access their private lands. We also extend thanks to Dr. Sharon Deem, Dr. Ainoa Nieto Claudın, Jose Harro, Diego Ellis-Soto, Dr. Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau, and the Gomez Ramon family for their help and discussions. This publication is contribution number 2456 of the Charles Darwin Foundation, under the Galapagos National Park permit PC-16-19 & PC-35-18.

Funding

This research was funded by the Winifred Violet Scott Charitable Trust, and a Prestige Research Training Program awarded to KP and a United States National Science Foundation (DEB 1258062) grant awarded to SB.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

    K. N. Pike & L. Schwarzkopf

  2. Department of Biology, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, USA

    S. Blake

  3. Max Planck Institute for Animal Behaviour, Radolfzell, Germany

    S. Blake

  4. Wildcare Institute, Saint Louis Zoo, Saint Louis, USA

    S. Blake

  5. Central Queensland University, Townsville, Australia

    I. J. Gordon

  6. James Hutton Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK

    I. J. Gordon

  7. Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    I. J. Gordon

  8. CSIRO, Townsville, Australia

    I. J. Gordon

  9. Lead, Protected Places Initiative, National Environmental Science Program RRRC, Cairns, Australia

    I. J. Gordon

  10. Charles Darwin Fundación, Santa Cruz, Galápagos, Puerto Ayora, Ecuador

    F. Cabrera

  11. Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ, Quito, Ecuador

    G. Rivas-Torres

  12. Galapagos Science Center, USFQ-UNC, Chapel Hill, USA

    G. Rivas-Torres

  13. Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA

    G. Rivas-Torres

  14. Geography Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    G. Rivas-Torres

  15. Center for Galapagos Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    F. J. Laso

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  1. K. N. Pike
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Contributions

KP, LS, IG and SB conceived the ideas and designed methodology; FC collected the movement data and KP the fence structure data; FL categorized the road network data. FL and GRT produced the land cover data. KP analysed the data; KP led the writing of the manuscript. All authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.

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Correspondence to K. N. Pike.

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Pike, K.N., Blake, S., Gordon, I.J. et al. Navigating agricultural landscapes: responses of critically endangered giant tortoises to farmland vegetation and infrastructure. Landsc Ecol 38, 501–516 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-022-01566-x

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