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Large-scale experimental removal of non-native slider turtles has unexpected consequences on basking behavior for both conspecifics and a native, threatened turtle

Max R. Lambert, Jennifer M. McKenzie, Robyn M. Screen, Adam G. Clause, Benjamin J. Johnson, Genevieve G. Mount, H. Bradley Shaffer, Gregory B. Pauly
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/312173
Max R. Lambert
bAddress where research occurred: University of California, Davis, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA
cPresent Addresses: School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, 370 Prospect St, New Haven, CT 06511, USA. Email:
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  • For correspondence: max.lambert@yale.edu lambert.mrm@gmail.com lambert.mrm@gmail.com
Jennifer M. McKenzie
bAddress where research occurred: University of California, Davis, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA
dDepartment of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Kentucky, 214 T.P. Cooper Building, Lexington, KY 40546-0073, USA. Email:
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  • For correspondence: mckenziemjenn@gmail.com
Robyn M. Screen
bAddress where research occurred: University of California, Davis, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA
eDepartment of Biology, University of Hawaii, Manoa, 2538 McCarthy Mall, Honolulu, HI 96822. Email:
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  • For correspondence: rmscreen@hawaii.edu
Adam G. Clause
bAddress where research occurred: University of California, Davis, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA
fWarnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, 180 East Green St, Athens, GA 30677, USA. Email:
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  • For correspondence: adamclause@gmail.com
Benjamin J. Johnson
bAddress where research occurred: University of California, Davis, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA
gDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Corson Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. Email:
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  • For correspondence: bbj23@cornell.edu
Genevieve G. Mount
bAddress where research occurred: University of California, Davis, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA
hBiology Department, Louisiana State University, 202 Life Sciences Building, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. Email:
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  • For correspondence: ggmountt@gmail.com
H. Bradley Shaffer
bAddress where research occurred: University of California, Davis, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA
iDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. Email:
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  • For correspondence: brad.shaffer@ucla.edu
Gregory B. Pauly
bAddress where research occurred: University of California, Davis, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA
jUrban Nature Research Center, and Section of Herpetology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA. Email:
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  • For correspondence: gpauly@nhm.org
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Abstract

The red-eared slider turtle (Trachemys scripta elegans; RES) is one of the world’s most invasive species. Native to the central United States, RES are now widely established in freshwater habitats across the globe, largely due to release of unwanted pets. Laboratory and mesocosm experiments suggest that introduced RES are competitively dominant to native turtles, but such competition remains untested in the wild. Here, we experimentally removed introduced RES to test whether they compete for critical basking habitat with native, threatened western pond turtles (Emys marmorata; WPT), a species being considered for listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Following removal, we found that both the remaining RES as well as WPT altered their basking distribution but in a manner inconsistent with strong interspecific competition. However, these findings suggest strong intraspecific competition for basking sites amongst RES and that interspecific competition between WPT and introduced RES likely occurs at higher RES densities. Our works suggests RES influence the behavior of native species in the wild and indicates that RES removal may be most beneficial at high RES densities. This experiment highlights the importance of considering experimental venue when evaluating competition between native and non-native species and should encourage conservation biologists to treat removal efforts as experiments.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted May 02, 2018.
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Large-scale experimental removal of non-native slider turtles has unexpected consequences on basking behavior for both conspecifics and a native, threatened turtle
Max R. Lambert, Jennifer M. McKenzie, Robyn M. Screen, Adam G. Clause, Benjamin J. Johnson, Genevieve G. Mount, H. Bradley Shaffer, Gregory B. Pauly
bioRxiv 312173; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/312173
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Large-scale experimental removal of non-native slider turtles has unexpected consequences on basking behavior for both conspecifics and a native, threatened turtle
Max R. Lambert, Jennifer M. McKenzie, Robyn M. Screen, Adam G. Clause, Benjamin J. Johnson, Genevieve G. Mount, H. Bradley Shaffer, Gregory B. Pauly
bioRxiv 312173; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/312173

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