ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — After digging through mud on his hands and knees, Todd Fredericksen straightened up and held out his find.
The small turtle hid itself in its patterned shell as Fredericksen wiped the mud off its back, revealing a tiny radio transmitter.
Fredericksen, an environmental science professor at Ferrum College, is using transmitters to track 11 box turtles as part of his summer research.
Fredericksen’s work in Franklin County focuses on box turtles’ habitat selection in relation to weather and temperature. He is the first recipient of a new Faculty Summer Scholars grant from the college. He spent most of the $2,000 on the transmitter equipment.
The goal is to see which habitats the turtles prefer depending on weather conditions. Fredericksen said the turtles present an interesting challenge because they often do not follow the movement patterns he would expect.
“These little critters are very unpredictable in many ways,” Fredericksen said. “You never know what you’re going to get with them.”
Fredericksen heads out to find the turtles across his 32-acre Ferrum property about every other day using a hand-held antenna and a tracking device he tunes to each turtle’s unique radio frequency. Much like a metal detector, the tracking device beeps louder as the antenna gets closer to the turtle’s location.
On a cool, overcast day last month, Fredericksen was surprised to find a male box turtle buried deep in a muddy creek.
“A day like today I would expect them to be up here up on the surface having a big old time,” he said. “This is the kind of behavior I would expect during a dry period.”
Box turtles are named for their unique ability to fully enclose themselves within their shell, thanks to the hinged lower half of the shell, called the plastron, according to a Virginia Wildlife magazine article Fredericksen co-wrote in 2007. A box turtle can tuck itself completely inside its shell and close the plastron, keeping its soft parts hidden from potential predators.
Virginia is populated by the eastern box turtle, one of four box turtle species in North America.
Fredericksen said his property is perfect for the research because it offers a variety of habitat options for the turtles, including lawn, tall grass, creeks and wooded areas. When Fredericksen finds a turtle, he records its habitat and behavior, as well as the weather conditions, temperature and humidity. Fredericksen said he hopes the data will help explain some of the questions he still has, even after eight years of studying the turtles.
“What types of habitat do they select and prefer?” he said. “What makes them go where they go?”
Two incoming Ferrum students had the opportunity to help Fredericksen answer these questions when they started two-week internships with him last month. The students, who each will earn two college credits, are part of the Freshman Scholars internship program that started this year. Freshman Scholars coordinator and assistant professor of biology Katie Goff said the students will learn skills they will depend on for the rest of their scientific careers.
“What they’re doing with Todd is the bread and butter of science,” she said. “That kind of foundation gives them a really good start to go onto graduate school.”
Goff said the students will collect data and work with Fredericksen every day for two weeks. She said the summer work will allow them not only to learn necessary skills, but also to form a valuable relationship with a professor.
“We give them a great intro to success and give them that tie-in with faculty,” she said. “In my experience the students that are most likely to persist and graduate and really flourish at Ferrum are students that you really know one-on-one.”
Fredericksen said one reason he likes studying box turtles is that they are a good teaching tool.
“They are a good study animal for students,” he said. “They are an interesting and fairly simple species to get students interested.”
Fredericksen has conducted previous box turtle studies that focus on conservation. He and five other scientists attached transmitters and tracked five turtles to study the reptiles’ reaction to logging in Franklin and Henry counties.
The authors wrote in the Virginia Wildlife article that road construction and habitat destruction and fragmentation are taking a toll on the turtle population. They also wrote that well-intentioned people who take box turtles home as pets can also cause problems.
“Removing even one adult turtle can be detrimental to the local population. And once they are removed, they can never be returned. Turtles held in captivity and released into the wild are more vulnerable to predators or being hit on highways as they search for their home,” the article says.
Fredericksen said that one of the biggest problems for box turtles is their struggle with “recruitment,” or survival of offspring, since the shells of baby turtles are too soft to protect them from predators like foxes and raccoons. The Virginia Herpetological Society website says the eastern box turtle has a “high conservation need” and that it is possible that the species will become extinct.
Fredericksen said that having a better understanding of how the turtles move and what habitats they prefer could help improve conservation efforts. He said he plans to continue his research at least until the 11 turtles go into hibernation once the weather gets cold.
Until then, he will monitor the turtles and try to understand what seem to be their unique personalities.
“I think they know when I’m coming,” he said, pushing aside branches to reach a female turtle who had buried herself under the leaf litter. “And they take me into poison ivy or the thickest brush imaginable.”
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Information from: The Roanoke Times, http://www.roanoke.com
