Houston ChandlerViews:
As 2026 gets underway, I am going to take a look back at some of the highlights from the Science Initiative’s work in 2025. Last year, we mostly continued working on projects that were already underway, including finishing up a couple of projects that we had been previously working on. We continued to work with a wide variety of species and partners to accomplish our conservation and research goals. There were several unusual or exciting happenings during 2025. We saw snow in the Georgia sandhills, found two indigo snake nests, documented quadruple clutching in Spotted Turtles, identified two previously unknown populations of Spotted Turtles, and continued to publish long-term work on Reticulated Flatwoods Salamander conservation. Overall, we had a great year in 2025 and are excited to continue our science-based conservation work in 2026.
Research Projects
During 2025, we worked on a wide variety of research projects that, unsurprisingly, accounted for the vast majority of our time and energy. This included work with Eastern Indigo Snakes, Spotted Turtles, Eastern Box Turtles, Gopher Tortoises, Reticulated Flatwoods Salamanders, and Tiger Salamanders. Here are some of the highlights from 2025.
Spotted Turtle Surveys across the Southeast
Our biggest project in 2025 was surveying for Spotted Turtles across three states, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. We started surveys in February using a standardized protocol and continued looking for turtles through early June. Spotted Turtles continued to be incredibly difficult to survey for in Florida. We sampled 10 sites, conducting 731 trap nights and 108 hours of visual encounter surveys, but only captured Spotted Turtles (7 individuals) at the long-term monitoring site where turtles have been captured for many years. We had more success in Georgia, documenting two previously unknown Spotted Turtle populations and continuing to have high levels of success at our two long-term monitoring sites. After 1,560 trap nights and 160 hours of visual encounter surveys, we encountered a total of 90 individuals across four sites. Lastly, surveying in South Carolina proved to be surprisingly difficult. We did capture 23 individuals at the long-term monitoring site in that state, but only encountered one Spotted Turtle at other sites. Across all survey efforts, drought and a lack of water continued to be a consistent challenge to effectively surveying for Spotted Turtles in the Southeast.
“Perhaps the most exciting result from this field season was documenting a single female producing four clutches, the first time this has been documented in wild Spotted Turtles.”
Spotted Turtle Nesting Ecology and Hatchling Performance
Another one of our major projects in 2025 was also Spotted Turtle-focused. This project, funded through the DoD’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), seeks to understand how thermal landscape variation impacts Spotted Turtle reproductive success. Spotted Turtles are somewhat unique in that they range from Florida to southern Canada. Thus, populations experience incredibly different thermal environments and active seasons across their range. Eggs also undergo temperature-dependent sex determination, where the temperatures experienced during development ultimately determine the sex of the individual. For this project, we radio-tracked and threadspooled gravid female turtles to find nesting locations at a single site in Georgia. We then recorded temperatures within the nests using small data loggers and collected hatchlings once they emerged. Hatchlings have been kept in the lab since hatching at Georgia Southern University, and we have conducted weekly trials to examine their performance (righting time) as well as monitored growth over time. Complementary work was conducted by Zoo New England in Massachusetts, and we will ultimately compare the results of this work across two landscapes with different thermal profiles. Perhaps the most exciting result from this field season was documenting a single female producing four clutches, the first time this has been documented in wild Spotted Turtles.
GPS Telemetry with Eastern Box Turtles
One of the projects that we wrapped up in 2025 was some work on a private property in southern Georgia examining the movement patterns of Eastern Box Turtles. Despite significant survey effort, we only located two live box turtles during the spring but found shells from 15 dead box turtles. We deployed GPS transmitters (recording hourly locations) on the two live turtles, collecting a total of 1,151 and 761 point locations for the two individuals. Using these locations, we estimated the home ranges of these individuals to be approximately 36 and 15 hectares in size. Both turtles spent most of their time in upland longleaf pine forests and low-lying, woody wetlands. The high number of dead turtles that we located during this project is concerning, and we have submitted a proposal to do additional work in this region examining box turtle populations.
Sampling Reptile and Amphibian Communities in Wetlands Embedded in a Working Forest
A majority of the land across the southeast is privately owned and used, as least in part, for uses other than conservation or biodiversity benefit. Large tracts of land are used for silviculture (typically growing pine trees), but such properties may also provide some biodiversity benefits. Through a collaboration with the National Council for Air and Stream Improvements (NCASI), we have been surveying reptile and amphibian communities in 30 wetlands on a private, working forest in northern Florida. We used a combination of survey techniques, including dipnetting, visual encounter surveys, call surveys, and cover boards to obtain a broad sample of species diversity and relative abundance. Across all survey effort to date, we have identified 22 native species (10 reptiles and 12 amphibians) and observed one non-native species (Greenhouse Frogs, Eleutherodactylus planirostris). Communities have been dominated by Southern Leopard Frogs (569 individuals), Southern Cricket Frogs (490 individuals), and Little Grass Frogs (164 individuals), representing over 91% of all observations. Species diversity per wetland ranged from 0–9 (mean = 3.9 species per wetland). This project is ongoing, and we expect to find additional species as we sample across seasons and during different environmental conditions.
Long-term Indigo Snake Monitoring in Georgia
At the beginning and end of 2025, we continued our long-term project monitoring Georgia’s Eastern Indigo Snake populations. During the 2024–2025 season, we conducted 57 surveys, documenting indigo snakes on 17 of those surveys and at 10 of the 19 survey sites. In total, we observed 23 indigo snakes and 17 indigo snake shed skins. We also observed the remains of indigo snake nests on two occasions. Nests are rarely observed in the wild, and these were noteworthy observations. In addition to fieldwork, Dr. Javan Bauder and I have been working on estimating indigo snake abundance at four sites in Georgia using the long-term data that we have collected alongside our partners. We will share more about the results of this work in 2026.
Partnerships
All of the above work would not be possible without working with a diverse group of partners. One of the most rewarding experiences of 2025 for me was participating in a week-long workshop to discuss ongoing efforts to reintroduce indigo snakes to the western portion of their historic range. Read my earlier post about the workshop here. Similarly, I continued to co-chair (with Robert Hill from Zoo Atlanta) the Eastern Indigo Snake Reintroduction Committee, and we held our annual meeting in the fall. In February, I was elected as the junior co-chair for the Southeastern Partners for Amphibian and Reptile Conservation. Over the course of the year, I got to work with many people from across the region and look forward to continuing to help guide SEPARC during 2026. Finally, we continue to collaborate with a variety of federal, state, and academic biologists on almost every project that we work on, broadening the scope of many of our research projects.
Presentations and Publications
In 2025, we spent a significant amount of time and energy sharing the results of our work with the broader herpetology community and the general public. Making the results of our work available and sharing what we learn about the species we work with is one of our most important goals.
We published six peer-reviewed research papers during 2025. These manuscripts covered a range of topics, including:
- testing the efficacy of using Environmental DNA to detect indigo snakes in terrestrial environments (2 papers),
- monitoring the spread of the invasive pentastome (lungworm) Raillietiella orientalis,
- examining communities associated with Gopher Tortoise burrows,
- reporting Reticulated Flatwoods Salamander responses to habitat restoration,
- examining the effects of unpaved roads on lizards in the Ocala National Forest, and
- predicting population viability of flatwoods salamander under future climate changes.
All of these manuscripts are available on the publication section of our website. Writing manuscripts and going through the publication process is often slow and tedious, and we could not have published all of this work without the many collaborators who helped along the way.
In addition to writing papers, we also gave a variety of presentations discussing our research in 2025. In February, Chris, Ben, Andrea, Jesus, and I all attended the annual Southeastern Partners for Amphibian and Reptile Conservation meeting in Lake Guntersville State Park, Alabama. I gave presentations on some of our indigo snake eDNA work and the ongoing flatwoods salamander work at Eglin Air Force Base (standing in for Dr. Amanda Martin, Virginia Tech). Ben, Jesus, and Andrea presented posters on our Spotted Turtle and indigo snake research and monitoring projects. Over the summer, Ben attended the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in St. Paul, Minnesota, while Andrea and I attended the Annual Symposium on the Conservation and Biology of Tortoises and Freshwater Turtles (hosted by The Turtle Survival Alliance) in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We also contributed to two presentations given by collaborators at the annual Northeastern Partners for Amphibian and Reptile Conservation meeting.
In addition to meetings, we also gave presentations to several other groups during 2025. I was invited to give seminars at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and at Old Dominion University. I also spoke to the University of Georgia’s Herpetological Society, participated in a career development panel at Georgia College and State University, and taught a class on snake ecology for the Amphibian Foundation’s Master Herpetologist Program. Finally, Ben and Andrea led a fieldtrip to the Longleaf Stewardship Center for a group of fellows enrolled in the National Science Foundation’s Research and Mentoring for Postbaccalaureates (RaMP) in Biological Sciences program at Georgia Southern University.
Small Grants for Graduate Students
During 2025, we funded four graduate student projects working on conservation-related issues in the southeast. These grants went to students at the University of Georgia (2), the University of Florida, and the University of Central Florida. Their research covered a range of topics including, metapopulation dynamics of Gopher Frogs, assessment of upland snake communities in the Red Hills Region, the effects of hemlock imidacloprid treatments on stream salamanders, and population structure of Eastern Ribbon Snakes with a focus on the Florida Keys. In December, we selected four new students to receive grants in 2026, and we look forward to sharing more about their projects soon.
Looking ahead to 2026
During the first half of 2026, we will be full speed ahead working on existing projects, including our annual indigo snake monitoring and several months of Spotted Turtle work across the southeast. We will wrap up our work testing the performance of juvenile Spotted Turtles, and those individuals will be released back into the wild. We will also continue to sample wetlands in Florida as part of our National Council for Air and Stream Improvements (NCASI) funded project, and we will finish our USDA NRCS funded project examining wetland hydrology in pine flatwoods systems. In the second half of 2026, we will likely start some new projects focused on Gopher Tortoises and the communities that rely on their burrows. Towards the end of 2026 and likely working into early 2027, we will collate years of Spotted Turtle data from the southeast into a dedicated conservation plan for the region.
We are excited to continue working towards the effective conservation and management of imperiled reptiles and amphibians in 2026. We will continue to provide occasional updates about ongoing Science Initiative projects. You are always welcome to reach out if you have questions about any of the work that we do.
