Fire management alters the thermal landscape and provides multi‐scale thermal options for a terrestrial turtle facing a changing climate

Abstract

As effects of climate change intensify, there is a growing need to understand the thermal properties of landscapes and their influence on wildlife. A key thermal property of landscapes is vegetation structure and composition. Management approaches can alter vegetation and consequently the thermal landscape, potentially resulting in underappreciated consequences for wildlife thermoregulation. Consideration of spatial scale can clarify how management overlaid onto existing vegetation patterns affects thermal properties of landscapes relevant to wildlife. We examined effects of temperature, fire management, and vegetation structure on multi‐scale habitat selection of an ectothermic vertebrate (the turtle Terrapene carolina triunguis ) in the Great Plains of the central United States by linking time‐since‐fire data from 18 experimental burn plots to turtle telemetry locations and thermal and vegetation height data. Within three 60‐ha experimental landscapes, each containing six 10‐ha sub‐blocks that are periodically burned, we found that turtles select time‐since‐fire gradients differently depending on maximum daily ambient temperature. At moderate temperatures, turtles selected sub‐blocks with recent (

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