October 2020

The monitoring campaign of pond turtle’s distribution has been performed along last June in 23 localities of Doñana Nature Area. This monitoring is performed every 4 years in the same localities and the main objective is to register the two species of pond turtles of Doñana, the European pond turtle (Emys orbicularis) and the Mediterranean pond turtle (Mauremys leprosa), as well as variations in their distribution. This protocol was initiated in 2007 and it is carried out by placing 5 fyke nets during 24 hours in each sampling point.

We found pond turtles in only 7 out of the 22 sampled localities (one locality could not be sampled because it did not have water). A total of 19 Emys orbicularis were captured in 5 localities and 8 Mauremys leprosa in 4 localities. The two species were found together only in two of these sampling points. It is remarkable that only 26% of the sampled localities had pond turtles and that 4 out of the 7 localities with these reptiles were “zacallones”, artificial structures to preserve water during drought periods. Besides, almost 50% of the individuals of Emys orbicularis were juveniles while in the case of Mauremys this percentage of juveniles was over 50%. The scarce presence of pond turtles detected can be due to current threatens at Doñana as the decrease of the hydroperiod of many temporary water ponds, the fishing pressure with nets in the natural park or the presence of invasive species.