Tag: turtles

Western Pond Turtle Links

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment

Here is a collection of links to articles I’ve written about western pond turtles.

This “Western Pond Turtle” category menu also includes a variety of content published by other people, most of which involves turtles from my lab. Just continue scrolling down through this category page to see articles, images, and videos I’ve shared from other sources.

My Thesis Research

In these posts, I talk about my master’s thesis research into the nesting behavior and nest site selection of western pond turtles.

0DCBA54F-CA4B-4DB2-9FA0-3EB636DE7A3EEnd of Field Season (July 1, 2013)
7th World Congress of Herpetology (August 13, 2012)
Field Season: June 8 (June 8, 2012)
Emerging Baby Turtles (April 23, 2012)
Wildlife Society Western Section (February 2, 2012)
End of Field Season (July 3, 2011)
Turtle Release (June 30. 2011)
Field Season: June 29th (June 29, 2011)
Field Season: June 28th (June 28, 2011)
Field Season: June 23 (June 23, 2011)
Field Season: June 21st (June 21, 2011)
Field Season: Cobb Mountain (June 19, 2011)
Western Section Poster (February 1, 2011)
Turtle Research (December 9, 2010)
A Photo of Me (July 1, 2010)

Additional Turtle Posts By Me

These are posts I’ve written about western pond turtles that are not directly related to my own research. Most of them talk about our headstarting program, which I participated in by collecting, incubating, and hatching eggs, as well as regular data collection about the growth of hatchlings before their release back into the wild.

tumblr_m7e0r2rIFj1r5vtdno2_1280Tiny and Adorable Western Pond Turtles (September 11, 2013)
Turtles! (June 10, 2013)
Grumpyface (September 8, 2012)
Brand New Babies (September 5, 2012)
We Have a Baby! (September 2, 2012)
Soon, Very Soon . . . (August 31, 2012)
Baby Turtle Release (August 20, 2012)
Me and My BB! (August 17th, 2012)
201 (July 18th, 2012)
Baby Turtles (May 8, 2012)
Western Pond Turtle Hatchling (September 15, 2011)
Western Pond Turtle (drawn by me) (September 15, 2011)

 

 

Ready, Set, Reintroduce!

- Wendy St. John 1 Comment

Originally posted on the San Francisco Bay Area National Parks Science and Learning Blog

The Presidio’s Mountain Lake restoration is moving forward this year with several native species reintroductions. The Sierran chorus frog (Pseudacris sierra), is slated to be the first species reintroduced. This species was extirpated from the Presidio sometime in the 20th century and, although common throughout its range, has become very rare in the city of San Francisco. The first phase of the reintroduction will take place in February, when chorus frog egg masses will be placed in protective enclosures to keep them safe from predators as they acclimate to Mountain Lake. The tadpoles that hatch in those enclosures will then be released into Mountain Lake in March. Later in the year, threespine stickleback and the Western Pond turtles will also be reintroduced to the lake.

Reintroduction projects offer a wide range of opportunities for scientific exploration and citizen science engagement, so the Presidio Trust has been partnering with several organizations and institutions to broaden impact and expand knowledge in the fields of reintroduction biology and urban ecology. For instance, partners at Stanford University just published research on the potential to achieve improved water quality from the reintroduction of freshwater mussels, and the California Academy of Sciences produced an excellent video on the Mountain Lake restoration, including upcoming species reintroductions. Keep an eye on the Presidio Trust website and social media for more reintroduction-related news and events throughout 2015. It’s an exciting time in the history of Mountain Lake!

Spatial Analysis in Macroecology

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment

It’s my turn to teach a lesson next week for the stats class I’m taking this semester (everyone has to do one; my topic is analyzing spatial data). This class was supposed to focus on SAS, but so far we’ve done almost nothing in SAS (which is fine with me since I don’t really care that much about learning SAS at this moment; I think JMP will be fine for most of my thesis needs). Especially since it looks like next week I might not do anything with SAS at all; instead, my professor wants me to play around with a program called SAM (Spatial Analysis in Macroecology), so I did a bit of that this evening.

And so far it looks pretty cool! I think I might be able to do some of the things I planned to do in ArcGIS in SAM instead, and a bit more easily. We shall see. It took me all evening to import a data set (for a really stupid reason I should have caught a lot sooner, but OH WELL :D. I thought it was a Mac to PC problem, and part of it was, but mostly it was that I had a numeric value in one of my column labels and apparently the program hates that).

414EA332-4915-4D37-9E48-049A5562699C.jpg

ANYHOODLE there they are. Those are ALL the nests we’ve found for this particular population of turtles in six years of field research. (Including viable nests, nest attempts, and predated nests). This isn’t the data set I’ll use for the meat of my analysis; I’m just going to use these to calculate a mean nest distance value for this population. But this was a good place to start with SAM, I think. Tomorrow, I’ll play around with this a bit more and see what cool stuff I can do. For now though, I like it. And I guess I can put together some sort of presentation about it, assuming this is what my professor decides he wants me to teach. Even if he ends up having me do stuff in JMP (or even SAS), it’s okay – I’m glad to be having the opportunity to learn a bit about SAM. I think it might be really useful to me down the road.

Baby Turtles

- Wendy St. John 2 Comments

These are western pond turtles (Emys marmorata), California’s only native freshwater turtle. They are also tiny and adorable right after they hatch (yes I am a scientist I have data to prove this). 😀 These babies were incubated in their nests (at my field site), and the eggs were collected last week, so they could hatch in the lab. They’ll be raised for either one or two years at one of three local zoos, before being released back into the wild.

Western pond turtle. That protrusion on the belly is the turtle’s external yolk; this is normal, and will be absorbed into its body during the next few weeks.
I AM SCIENTIST therefore I record data on paper towels. What, doesn’t everyone do this?
Literally just hatched.
Our incubators. Reasonably low tech, but they get the job done. OH LOOK more paper towels.
Precious babby. They are so tiny when they first hatch. I’d say on average they’re about 4 to 4.5 grams. This one is not even 4 grams (although the one in the first photo was big – almost 6).

End of Field Season

- Wendy St. John 1 Comment

And … as of a few hours ago, my field season for this year has officially ENDED. I didn’t think I was even going to find any turtles today, but then, at the tail end of my last walkthrough, I found this gorgeous lady, JUST after she finished nesting (which is the absolute best time to find them, for a bunch of different reasons). So, YAY Turtle #261! My last turtle of what might be my last official field season on this project. Isn’t she the prettiest princess EVER?

Overall, it was a weird field season. We didn’t find nearly as many nests as in previous years, and we never really had a “peak” – there is usually a week or so when LOADS of turtles are all out on the same days; I think the most we ever had on a single day this year was five. I attribute this mostly to the weather (which alternated between rainy and cold, which they won’t come out to nest in, and EXTREME heat, which they also won’t come out to nest in). But, it was still fun, although I will say I’m glad it’s over. I get a bit tired of camping two or three nights a week.

Turtles!

- Wendy St. John 2 Comments

TURTLES! We found four of them last night. PRECIOUS BABBIES! This one is #248. AND SHE IS THE PRETTIEST PRINCESS IN PRINCESS TOWN! She was really adorable, too. She stuck her head out while we were taking photos, and let me rub under her chin. SO...

TURTLES! We found four of them last night. This one is #248. AND SHE IS THE PRETTIEST PRINCESS IN PRINCESS TOWN! She was really adorable, too. She stuck her head out while we were taking photos.

Don’t know if we’ll see any turtles tonight. Weather is all over the place here; we had a MASSIVE thunderstorm last night, and a bit of rain. They won’t come out to nest unless the ground is dry, so if it rained too much at the field site, tonight will be dead up there. But we’ll see. Either way, TURTLES!!!!!!

Graduate Showcase

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment

My presentation at today’s Graduate Showcase went really well! I’m posting the slides here, in case anyone is interested. It only hits on two of my research questions, and all the stats were removed, as this was geared toward a non-scientific audience. Still, it should give an idea about the focus of my research.

Biometry Presentation

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment
Giving a short presentation tomorrow in my biometry class on my turtle research. So here, have some slides! It was actually REALLY cool to have a first stab at analyzing my preliminary data, from three field seasons. I still have one more field season before I’ll be finished with this project. But, it was COOL! I’m not yet able to answer my main question: do these turtles exhibit nest site fidelity? But I’m starting to tease apart the various factors that may influence how they decide where to nest. tumblr_mefk6lkYAQ1r5vtdno1_1280tumblr_mefk6lkYAQ1r5vtdno2_1280tumblr_mefk6lkYAQ1r5vtdno6_1280tumblr_mefk6lkYAQ1r5vtdno3_1280tumblr_mefk6lkYAQ1r5vtdno4_1280

Presentation for Professional Skills

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment

I have managed to complete my Power Point for Monday. I’m pretty sure that it sort of sucka, but my advisor has been so busy lately he hasn’t gotten back to me with feedback on the first draft of my master’s proposal, so this presentation is based on my original draft.. Here are some of the slides, if anyone is interested.