Individual, local and subspecific variation in female Hermann’s tortoise (Testudo hermanni) reproductive characters

We studied reproductive characters of a population of the tortoise Testudo h. hermanni in the Plaine des Maures (Var), and compared these to another population in southern France and to T. h. boettgeri in Greece. Clutch characters, which are measures of total reproductive investment, showed no differences between subspecies or sites after body size correction by ANCOVA. Egg characters, which measure the division of this investment among offspring, did vary significantly among both subspecies and sites after correcting for body mass. The presence of such local variation should discourage relocation of the threatened T. h. hermanni even between populations of the same subspecies.