Figure 1. Mean annual and seasonal home range size (95 percent adaptive kernel) of radio-tagged male and female alligators located in Water Conservation Area 3A North and Everglades National Park from November 1996 to August 1999. Click for larger image.

During the last 100 years, the hydrology of the Everglades has been greatly altered by mankind. Efforts to repair the functioning of the ecosystem are using a multicomponent model, the Across Trophic Level Systems Simulation (ATLSS), to predict the response of native flora and fauna to alterative water delivery scenarios. This study was designed to provide information on the natural history and population functioning of the American alligator in the Everglades for construction of an ATLSS American alligator population model and to investigate restoration needs and status of the alligator in the Everglades ecosystem.

A 5-year study has been initiated on the home range, daily movement, habitat use, thermoregulation, and body temperature patterns of alligators in both Shark Slough, Everglades National Park, and in Water Conservation area 3A North. A total of 66 alligators were captured and surgically implanted with radio-transmitters. A subset of 29 of these also were implanted with temperature recording data loggers. Data loggers recorded core body temperature simultaneously at 72 minute intervals for 1 year.

Weekly aerial telemetry locations were collected beginning January 1, 1997, to estimate home range size. Week-long intensive sampling efforts conducted from November 7, 1997, to July 31, 1998, were used to estimate daily movement and habitat use. Some home-range and body temperature results are shown in figure 4.

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(This abstract was taken from the Greater Everglades Ecosystem Restoration (GEER) Open File Report (PDF, 8.7 MB))

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