Abstract
To improve conservation strategies for threatened sea turtles, more knowledge on their ecology, behavior, and how they cope with severe and changing weather conditions is needed. Satellite and animal motion datalogging tags were used to study the inter-nesting behavior of two female loggerhead turtles in the Gulf of Mexico, which regularly has hurricanes and tropical storms during nesting season. We contrast the behavioral patterns and swimming energetics of these two turtles, the first tracked in calm weather and the second tracked before, during and after a tropical storm. Turtle 1 was highly active and swam at the surface or submerged 95% of the time during the entire inter-nesting period, with a high estimated specific oxygen consumption rate (0.95 ml min-1 kg-0.83). Turtle 2 was inactive for most of the first 9 days of the inter-nesting period, during which she rested at the bottom (80% of the time) with low estimated oxygen consumption (0.62 ml min-1 kg-0.83). Midway through the internesting period, turtle 2 encountered a tropical storm and became highly active (swimming 88% of the time during and 95% after the storm). Her oxygen consumption increased significantly to 0.97 ml min-1 kg-0.83 during and 0.98 ml min-1 kg-0.83 after the storm. However, despite the tropical storm, turtle 2 returned to the nesting beach, where she successfully re-nested 75 m from her previous nest. Thus, the tropical storm had a minor effect on this female's individual nesting success, even though the storm caused 90% loss nests at Casey Key.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 3432-3441 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Journal of Experimental Biology |
Volume | 220 |
Issue number | 19 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 1 2017 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Satellite tags were funded by the Florida Sea Turtle Grants Program supported by the Sea Turtle License Plate Fund (www.helpingseaturtles.org). M.W. was funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research – Natural Science (Natur og Univers, Det Frie Forskningsråd; 11-115577) and Carlsberg Foundation (Carlsbergfondet; CF14-0444).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.
ASJC Scopus Subject Areas
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
- Physiology
- Aquatic Science
- Animal Science and Zoology
- Molecular Biology
- Insect Science
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't