Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Arizona
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

In southern Florida, USA, Gopher Tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus) primarily occupy habitats that are considered suboptimal orunsuitable in other parts of the range. The dominant habitat is mesic flatwoods, which has abundant forage but has high water tables that mighthinder burrowing and nesting. In contrast, Florida scrub assemblages on inland ridges have suitable soils but scarce forage. We used radiotelemetry to monitor 22 male and 23 female Gopher Tortoises in mesic flatwoods and scrub habitats of southern Florida. Compared to mesicflatwoods, we predicted larger home ranges and more frequent movement among burrows in scrub because of the scarcity of forage, and wepredicted possible shifts in home ranges (e.g., from wetter to drier habitats) in response to seasonal rainfall. We found that home ranges in ourstudy area were larger than is typical for higher-quality habitats (e.g., sandhill) in other parts of the range, but we observed little movementbetween habitats. Male home ranges and burrow use patterns were similar in flatwoods and scrub, with males making frequent excursions to courtfemales. Females in scrub were sedentary, contradicting our prediction of frequent movement attributable to scarce forage, and we did notobserve feeding forays by either sex to adjacent food-rich habitats. Compared to females in scrub, females in flatwoods had larger home ranges,used more burrows, and moved more frequently among them. High levels of movement in flatwoods might have been influenced by the highwater table and frequent burrow flooding. Nonetheless, we saw no evidence of large-scale shifts to drier habitats for nesting or during peak rains.Further research is needed to investigate mechanisms that enable persistence of Gopher Tortoises under apparently suboptimal conditions.