Home range size and overlap of the small nocturnal Schlegel’s Japanese gecko (Gekko japonicus), introduced into a city park in Korea.

Il-Kook PARK, Dae-in KIM, Jonathan FONG, Daesik PARK*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Studying the home range of an organism is important in understanding its ecology. Due to being cryptic, few studies have been conducted on the home range studies of small, nocturnal geckos. We conducted radio-tracking surveys for 23 individuals to estimate the home range size and home range overlap of the Schlegel’s Japanese gecko (Gekko japonicus) previously introduced into a suburban city park. Individuals were commonly found in artificial structures (buildings and accessory structures) and on nearby natural trees. Daily moved distance was positively correlated with home range size. Minimum convex polygon (MCP) home range was 97.8 m2 for females and 99.5 m2 for males, on average. Gekko japonicus moved farther daily distances and used wider MCP and Kernel 95 home ranges in breeding season compared to non-breeding season, while the size of Kernel 50 home range did not differ between seasons. Both daily moved distance and home range size were not significantly different between sexes. In the breeding season, MCP and Kernel 50 home ranges of each gecko overlapped with 32.4% and 13.8% of remaining geckos, respectively. Our results not only show that 1) G. japonicus uses both artificial structures and adjacent natural trees as microhabitat, but also suggest that 2) G. japonicus is non-territorial, but has a core habitat that is shared with few other individuals, and 3) the reproductive system of G. japonicus is polygamous.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)261-269
Number of pages9
JournalAsian Herpetological Research
Volume10
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Dec 2019

Bibliographical note

We thank J. Y. SONG in Korea National Park Service for providing the receiver during the study.

Funding

This study was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (2016R1D1A1B03931085) and has been worked with the support of a research grant of Kangwon National University in 2018. This research was conducted within the guidelines and approval of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Kangwon National University (KW-161128-2).

Keywords

  • Invasive species
  • Korea
  • Lizard
  • Radio telemetry
  • Territory

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