Satellite tagging of rehabilitated green sea turtles Chelonia mydas from the United Arab Emirates, including the longest tracked journey for the species

Robinson, David P.; Jabado, Rima W.; Rohner, Christoph A.; Pierce, Simon J.; Hyland, Kevin; Baverstock, Warren

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0184286

Cited by 24 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…This is in general accordance with previous studies with rehabilitated individuals that have shown no major anomalies in post-release behaviour (e.g. Polovina et al 2006;Rees et al 2013;Robinson et al 2017; but see also Cardona et al 2012).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Large-scale movements in the oceanic environment identify important foraging areas for loggerheads in central Mediterranean Sea

et al. 2017

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Loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) are known to display a wide range of movement patterns during the different stages of their life cycle, but empirical information to document this extensive behavioural plasticity is still limited. This is especially true for large, adultsized individuals, that are thought to mainly forage in neritic areas. In the present paper, eight adult-sized loggerhead turtles were tracked using satellite telemetry to identify the location of their foraging grounds in the seas along the western coast of the Italian peninsula. Tracked turtles mostly stayed in the region between the Italian peninsula and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, that was reached following quick, directed movements by the turtles from a release site to the north. In this area, two turtles took up residence in spatially-limited neritic sites along the coast, while the remaining six alternated circumscribed coastal stays with long-distance, circuitous movements in the oceanic environment. An utilization distribution analysis clearly identified an area, mostly comprising oceanic waters, that was continuously used by turtles in different seasons and years. The present results contribute to the still-limited knowledge of the spatial ecology of loggerheads frequenting the Western Mediterranean Sea and highlight the presence of a potentially important oceanic region in the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea where adult-sized turtles forage for extended periods. These findings increase our knowledge of complex life history traits of loggerhead turtles and provide important information to be considered for evidence-based conservation measures.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Large-scale movements in the oceanic environment identify important foraging areas for loggerheads in central Mediterranean Sea

et al. 2017

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“…These assessments are necessary for establishing protected areas and maintaining habitat quality to ensure recovery of threatened and endangered species. While numerous studies have examined the migratory movements of adult female sea turtles between nesting beaches and foraging grounds (Seminoff et al, 2002(Seminoff et al, , 2008MacDonald et al, 2012MacDonald et al, , 2013Bradshaw et al, 2017;Robinson et al, 2017;Dutton et al, 2019), fewer studies have focused on the habitat use patterns of juvenile, neritic stage turtles (Godley et al, 2008;Coleman et al, 2017). Understanding the habitat needs of juvenile-stage sea turtles is a necessary component of managing population recovery because survival and maturation of this stage will eventually impact future reproduction and population growth (Crowder et al, 1994;Heppell et al, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Movements of Juvenile Green Turtles (Chelonia mydas) in the Nearshore Waters of the Northwestern Gulf of Mexico

et al. 2020

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Satellite telemetry is a valuable tool for examining long-term, large scale movements of highly migratory species. Tracking data can be used by resource managers to protect habitat and ensure recovery of threatened and endangered species. Few tracking studies have focused on habitat use patterns of juvenile, neritic stage turtles. Satellite tracking surveys were conducted to assess juvenile green turtle movements in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico during 2006-2010. Fifteen turtles were equipped with platform terminal transmitters (PTT; 3 rehabilitated, 12 wild). Mean track duration was 129 days (range: 16-344 days). A hierarchical switching state-space model (hSSM) was applied to extrapolate population level foraging/resident versus migratory movements. All turtles displayed residency in Texas bays during summer months (March-November) while five individuals exhibited seasonal migrations into Mexican waters following passage of strong cold fronts in December and January. Winter (e.g., Mexico) versus summer (e.g., Texas) core areas were not significantly different. Winter 95% contours were significantly larger than summer (summer: 125.4 ± 47.5 km 2 , n = 15; winter: 274.4 ± 252.9 km 2 , n = 5). Space-time hot spot analysis provided a new and unique approach for conducting spatiotemporal cluster analysis, and was applied to migratory turtles to determine monthly changes in distribution and habitat associations. Changes in hot spots over time were detected within the lower regions of the Laguna Madre with punctuated intervals of hot spot activity. Upper regions of the Laguna Madre were identified as new hot spots in the later part of the year (e.g., Fall/Winter). Within core areas in Texas, seagrasses comprised an average density of 32.4% while 87.5% of the total available seagrass habitat occurred within the 95% KDE contour. Based on PTT and historic tide station surface water temperatures, all turtles tracked over winter migrations and residencies (n = 5) remained within waters > 15 • C, suggesting a threshold temperature at which migration behavior may be initiated. Continued recovery of threatened and endangered sea turtle populations depends on a comprehensive examination of patterns in habitat use. These data suggest cooperation between the United States and Mexico is needed to protect critical habitat and enhance recovery of this species.

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“…Several methods, such as aerial survey [ 10 – 14 ], snorkeling survey [ 14 , 15 ] and telemetry [ 16 ] (e.g., very high frequency telemetry, sonic telemetry and satellite telemetry), have been used to study and monitor the population and distribution of sea turtles. Data acquisition systems such as GPS tracking, geolocating tags, time-temperature-depth recorders, and heart rate counters were also been used to monitor their behavior and physiology [ 16 – 20 ]. Another method suggestively having great potential for studying turtle behavior is to study the epibiota on shell turtles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

DNA metabarcoding and microscopic analyses of sea turtles biofilms: Complementary to understand turtle behavior

et al. 2018

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Sea turtles are distributed in tropical and subtropical seas worldwide. They play several ecological roles and are considered important indicators of the health of marine ecosystems. Studying epibiotic diatoms living on turtle shells suggestively has great potential in the study of turtle behavior because diatoms are always there. However, diatom identification at the species level is time consuming, requires well-trained specialists, and there is a high probability of finding new taxa growing on turtle shells, which makes identification tricky. An alternative approach based on DNA barcoding and high throughput sequencing (HTS), metabarcoding, has been developed in recent years to identify species at the community level by using a DNA reference library. The suitabilities of morphological and molecular approaches were compared. Diatom assemblages were sampled from seven juvenile green turtles (Chelonia mydas) from Mayotte Island, France. The structures of the epibiotic diatom assemblages differed between both approaches. This resulted in different clustering of the turtles based on their diatom communities. Metabarcoding allowed better discrimination between turtles based on their epibiotic diatom assemblages and put into evidence the presence of a cryptic diatom diversity. Microscopy, for its part, provided more ecological information of sea turtles based on historical bibliographical data and the abundances of ecological guilds of the diatom species present in the samples. This study shows the complementary nature of these two methods for studying turtle behavior.

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Satellite tagging of rehabilitated green sea turtles Chelonia mydas from the United Arab Emirates, including the longest tracked journey for the species

Cited by 24 publications

References 50 publications

Large-scale movements in the oceanic environment identify important foraging areas for loggerheads in central Mediterranean Sea

Large-scale movements in the oceanic environment identify important foraging areas for loggerheads in central Mediterranean Sea

Movements of Juvenile Green Turtles (Chelonia mydas) in the Nearshore Waters of the Northwestern Gulf of Mexico

DNA metabarcoding and microscopic analyses of sea turtles biofilms: Complementary to understand turtle behavior

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