Correlates of African Spurred Tortoise, Centrochelys sulcata, Occurrence in the West African Sahel

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Résumé

To better understand the habitat preferences of the African spurred tortoise (Centrochelys sulcata), we tested possible associations between their distribution and land use, vegetation cover, the presence of roads, human settlements, and rainfall patterns, all of which affect the distributions of other tortoise species. African spurred tortoise distribution (based on 36 presence points compared with 250 random points) was strongly associated with 3 variables we analyzed: 1) Corine Land Cover (CLC) categories (especially sites with deciduous shrubs and high herbaceous cover relative to random bare areas), 2) distance from human settlements, and 3) distance from the nearest road.

Mots-clés

Tortoise, Human settlement, Vegetation (pathology), Land cover, Geography, Ecology, Habitat, Distribution (mathematics), Deciduous, Land use, Forestry, Biology, Archaeology