In this episode of ECKERD COLLEGE NEWS, we share the stories, successes and research at Eckerd College and feature Tom Zucco's article on Associate Professor of Biology Jeff Goessling, Ph.D. and his four Eckerd College interns assessing gopher tortoise population on Egmont Key this summer. READ the full article here.
Writes Zucco: "Goessling, who also is the faculty sponsor of Eckerd’s Herpetological Society. In addition, Goessling is the Florida representative to the Gopher Tortoise Council, a nonprofit founded in 1978 by a group of Southeastern biologists and others concerned about the decline of the reptile.
That decline could spell trouble for many other animals. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission lists the gopher tortoise as a keystone species because it provides temporary or permanent refuge for as many as 350 to 400 species, whether the gopher tortoise is present or not. “The burrows are used for feeding, resting, reproduction and protection from temperature extremes, moisture loss and predators,” the FWC reports. “These species include gopher frogs, several species of snake, small invertebrates, sparrows and burrowing owls. The largest threats to gopher tortoises are habitat destruction, habitat degradation and human predation.”
Over the past several years, Goessling and his student workers released more than 150 young gopher tortoises back into their natural Alabama habitat. The tortoises had been harvested as eggs from burrows in Alabama and then hatched and reared in the Eckerd College greenhouse for more than a year as part of a Gopher Tortoise Head Start Program collaboration among Goessling’s laboratory, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the Birmingham Zoo, and Auburn University.
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