MSc submitted on Giant Bronze Gecko |12 December 2016

After many months of field work and data crunching, University of Bournemouth MSc student Chris Tagg has now completed his dissertation on the Giant Bronze Gecko. His research has given us a greater insight into this elusive yet charismatic species. 

Chris collected a huge amount of data in the few months of fieldwork. He caught a total of 666 geckos in an area of 3 hectares of the Vallée de Mai, which included many re-captured individuals, and he measured and pit-tagged 214 individual geckos.

New data collected from individuals which were also caught in earlier years will provide information on survival and growth, and the entire dataset forms important baseline information for the species.

The mark-recapture part of the study produced a population estimate of 1594-2364 geckos in the Vallée de Mai but this estimate has yet to be extrapolated to other areas of palm forest as this would require further research in these areas. The radio-tracking data showed that home range size of the geckos varied between individuals but male and female home range size was similar, unlike in other gecko species where males normally have much larger home ranges. 

This work will now be written up as a scientific publication which will include more data analysis to make the most of the strong dataset.

Chris would like to thank all of the SIF and Vallée de Mai teams, not only for their assistance and support but also their team spirit and enthusiasm for this project.

Source: SIF