Often ecologists, or those scientists who study ecology, are interested in why an organism lives in a particular region, but not elsewhere. Ecologists also attempt to understand all the things that make the numbers of organisms vary so much from year to year, or from place to place. In its simplest form ecology is all about understanding the distribution and abundance of plants and animals. At the Savannah River Ecology Lab, Dr. Whit Gibbons has spent over 30 years studying turtles, especially pond turtles like the yellow-bellied slider. There are chapters in the book on what turtles eat, how they grow, when they reproduce and how long they might live.
Some sections deal with how big turtles get and how many eggs they have and how big the babies are.
Other chapters discuss the habitats turtles prefer, how frequently they might move to new ponds, what their home ranges are, and how far they travel overland. Some chapters list some of the close relatives of the slider turtle, because sometimes to understand the ecology of one species it helps to know something about its relatives. And Dr. Gibbons would probably be the first to admit that we still don't know everything there is to know about slider turtles. Think of all the other species of amphibians and reptiles that live in the Southeast, and how little is known about the ecology of so many of them. Studying these animals to learn more so that we can help them and preserve their habitats will be a challenge for many many years to come.