Responses of freshwater turtles to drought: The past, present and implications for future climate change in Australia

Australia was not always arid, and the freshwater turtles that have survived to this day are either relicts residing in river systems that have themselves had a history or continuity through the drying of the continent, or they are species that have adapted in some way to meet the challenges of drought. In this chapter, we report on how Australian freshwater turtles cope with periodic loss of habitat through drought at a range of spatial and temporal scales, and consider how they might fare under changing climates predicted to occur through global warming. Global warming is not occurring in isolation of other environmental changes at a landscape scale, and we look at what interactions there mightbe between climate change and the increasing demands of agriculture, industry and our cities for water, in presenting challenges for our unique freshwater turtle fauna.