Growing as slow as a turtle: Unexpected maturational differences in a small, long-lived species.

Turtle body size is associated with demographic and other traits like mating success, reproductive output, maturity, and survival. As such, growth analyses are valuable for testing life history theory, demographic modeling, and conservation planning. Two important but unsettled research areas relate...

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Autores principales: Devin Edmonds, Michael J Dreslik, Jeffrey E Lovich, Thomas P Wilson, Carl H Ernst
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Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/d09116d1a032461281b9eac858efad2a
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:d09116d1a032461281b9eac858efad2a2021-12-02T20:12:46ZGrowing as slow as a turtle: Unexpected maturational differences in a small, long-lived species.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0259978https://doaj.org/article/d09116d1a032461281b9eac858efad2a2021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259978https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Turtle body size is associated with demographic and other traits like mating success, reproductive output, maturity, and survival. As such, growth analyses are valuable for testing life history theory, demographic modeling, and conservation planning. Two important but unsettled research areas relate to growth after maturity and growth rate variation. If individuals exhibit indeterminate growth after maturity, older adults may have an advantage in fecundity, survival, or both over younger/smaller adults. Similarly, depending on how growth varies, a portion of the population may mature earlier, grow larger, or both. We used 23-years of capture-mark-recapture data to study growth and maturity in the Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata), a species suffering severe population declines and for which demographic data are needed for development of effective conservation and management strategies. There was strong support for models incorporating sex as a factor, with the interval growth model reparametrized for capture-mark-recapture data producing later mean maturation estimates than the age-based growth model. We found most individuals (94%) continued growing after maturity, but the instantaneous relative annual plastral growth rate was low. We recommend future studies examine the possible contribution of such slow, continued adult growth to fecundity and survival. Even seemingly negligible amounts of annual adult growth can have demographic consequences affecting the population vital rates for long-lived species.Devin EdmondsMichael J DreslikJeffrey E LovichThomas P WilsonCarl H ErnstPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 11, p e0259978 (2021)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Medicine
R
Science
Q
spellingShingle Medicine
R
Science
Q
Devin Edmonds
Michael J Dreslik
Jeffrey E Lovich
Thomas P Wilson
Carl H Ernst
Growing as slow as a turtle: Unexpected maturational differences in a small, long-lived species.
description Turtle body size is associated with demographic and other traits like mating success, reproductive output, maturity, and survival. As such, growth analyses are valuable for testing life history theory, demographic modeling, and conservation planning. Two important but unsettled research areas relate to growth after maturity and growth rate variation. If individuals exhibit indeterminate growth after maturity, older adults may have an advantage in fecundity, survival, or both over younger/smaller adults. Similarly, depending on how growth varies, a portion of the population may mature earlier, grow larger, or both. We used 23-years of capture-mark-recapture data to study growth and maturity in the Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata), a species suffering severe population declines and for which demographic data are needed for development of effective conservation and management strategies. There was strong support for models incorporating sex as a factor, with the interval growth model reparametrized for capture-mark-recapture data producing later mean maturation estimates than the age-based growth model. We found most individuals (94%) continued growing after maturity, but the instantaneous relative annual plastral growth rate was low. We recommend future studies examine the possible contribution of such slow, continued adult growth to fecundity and survival. Even seemingly negligible amounts of annual adult growth can have demographic consequences affecting the population vital rates for long-lived species.
format article
author Devin Edmonds
Michael J Dreslik
Jeffrey E Lovich
Thomas P Wilson
Carl H Ernst
author_facet Devin Edmonds
Michael J Dreslik
Jeffrey E Lovich
Thomas P Wilson
Carl H Ernst
author_sort Devin Edmonds
title Growing as slow as a turtle: Unexpected maturational differences in a small, long-lived species.
title_short Growing as slow as a turtle: Unexpected maturational differences in a small, long-lived species.
title_full Growing as slow as a turtle: Unexpected maturational differences in a small, long-lived species.
title_fullStr Growing as slow as a turtle: Unexpected maturational differences in a small, long-lived species.
title_full_unstemmed Growing as slow as a turtle: Unexpected maturational differences in a small, long-lived species.
title_sort growing as slow as a turtle: unexpected maturational differences in a small, long-lived species.
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate 2021
url https://doaj.org/article/d09116d1a032461281b9eac858efad2a
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