Spring Habitat Selection by Four Eyespotted Turtle (Sacalia quadriocellata) in Limu Mountain of Hainan Island

Spring habitat selection by four eyespotted turtle (Sacalia quadriocellata) was studied from March to April 2004 in Limu Mountain of Hainan Island which geographically locates in 19°07′-19°14′N, 109°39′-109°49′E. Using regular sampling, elevation ranging from 170 to 1 170 m, a total of 196 representative plots were sampled in the mountain stream and the distance between every two adjacent plots was 60-90 m. At every selected plot, a bamboo cage with rotten beef as bait was placed for six days to catch turtles. Fourteen ecological factors (including width of water, depth of water, speed of flow water, substrate types, percentage of exposed stones, food abundance, vegetation types, coverage, thickness of deciduous leaves, elevation, slope degree, soil types, number of stone caves, distance to human disturbance) were measured at every plot. A total of 36 S. quadriocellata were caught at 26 plots below 500 m and no S. quadriocellata was caught above 500 m. Kruskal-Wallis Test was used to analyze the difference between the usage plots (n=26) below 500 m and contrastive plots (n=26) above 500 m. Of the 14 ecological factors, only the difference in number of stone caves between usage plots and contrastive plots is insignificant. This indicates that the environment above 500 m is rather different from that below 500 m. Principal components analysis were used to analyze the important factors which affect spring habitat selection by S. quadriocellata. The result showed that six important factors were as follows in decreasing order of importance: elevation, distance to human disturbance, coverage, soil types, water depth and thickness of deciduous leaves. And the influence of vegetation types, food abundance, percentage of exposed stones, substrate types, slope degree, number of stone caves, width of water and speed of flow water on spring habitat selection by S. quadriocellata was insignificant. To protect the vegetation near riverside and to improve local peoples conservation awareness are very important for the conservation of S. quadriocellata.