Question

4.1?

Threatened Florida gopher tortoises use woodlands, pastures, and even laws as habitat patches. When young tortoises need to disperse to new territories, they must move through a matrix crisscrossed by roads, where they risk being run over. 4.1) If the extinction probability for patches in Leon county in a given year is e=0.1 and the colonization probability c = 0.25, what proportion of the patches will be occupied at any given time? e-. 4.2) Suppose Leon County wants to invest in protecting tortoises (how progressive), and there is a study which shows that (1) certain measures can be taken to improve the habitat patches and lower the extinction probability to e = 0.07, and (2) other measures can be taken to lower road mortality (road barriers, wildlife corridors, and speed limit enforcement) resulting in an increase of colonization probability to c = 0.40. Suppose that both of these measures cost the same amount of money, that Leon Co. has the funds to pay for one of these measures, and that and that Leon Co. voters vote against a bill that would increase property tax by 0.001% to fund both measures. Which of the two measures should Leon Co. adopt to make the biggest impact on the tortoise population and why?

Answer 1

Ans4.1:- The patch size should be greater than the at least 100 hectares at a partivular time.

4.2:- The method which should be adopted is method 2 because conservation effort should not only consider tortoise number but also but also the safety and mortality related to the tortoise with respect to the patch size. Also in the second case, due to the involvment of safety of tortoises the population colonization probability increased to just double which is not seen in first case.

Hence second case can have a biggest impact on tortoise population.