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Nest site selection in sea turtles shows consistencies across the globe in the face of climate change

Holly Stokes, Nicole Esteban Orcid Logo, Graeme C. Hays

Animal Behaviour, Volume: 208, Pages: 59 - 68

Swansea University Authors: Holly Stokes, Nicole Esteban Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.12.001

Abstract

Sea turtles face a risk of extinction due to climate change causing warming of nests, which may increase both sex ratio skews, with fewer males being produced, and embryo mortality in nests. In theory, these threats could be mitigated by turtles switching their nest sites to cooler locations on beac...

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Published in: Animal Behaviour
ISSN: 0003-3472
Published: Elsevier BV 2024
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa65154
first_indexed 2023-11-29T10:36:30Z
last_indexed 2024-11-25T14:15:29Z
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spelling 2024-05-31T13:07:35.0240878 v2 65154 2023-11-29 Nest site selection in sea turtles shows consistencies across the globe in the face of climate change 6ee6932996059ed9e4d581641acce2f7 Holly Stokes Holly Stokes true false fb2e760b83b4580e7445092982f1f319 0000-0003-4693-7221 Nicole Esteban Nicole Esteban true false 2023-11-29 BGPS Sea turtles face a risk of extinction due to climate change causing warming of nests, which may increase both sex ratio skews, with fewer males being produced, and embryo mortality in nests. In theory, these threats could be mitigated by turtles switching their nest sites to cooler locations on beaches. We assessed nest positioning for green turtles, Chelonia mydas, in the Chagos Archipelago, a major nesting site in the Indian Ocean, and showed that nests were generally in vegetation at the back of the beach, where the risk of sea water inundation was lowest. The relatively few nests on the open beach were on average close to the vegetation. Sand temperatures at nest depths were similar across three beach zones (open sand, edge of vegetation, within the vegetation). Nest positioning was reviewed for 51 studies at 53 sites (including the current study) across the globe and across seven species: green turtles, hawksbills, Eretmochelys imbricata, loggerheads, Caretta caretta, leatherbacks, Dermochelys coriacea, olive ridleys, Lepidochelys olivacea, Kemp's ridleys, Lepidochelys kempii, and flatbacks, Natator depressus. Both in the Chagos Archipelago and across the globe studies show turtles generally tend to crawl a sufficient distance to minimize sea water overwash of nests, which can kill embryos. Hence maximizing embryo survival, rather than considerations of hatchling sex ratios, seems to be the main driver for nest positioning and so we conclude that sea turtles are, generally, unlikely to switch to select cooler beach sites to mitigate climate warming. Journal Article Animal Behaviour 208 59 68 Elsevier BV 0003-3472 climate change, feminization, hatchling sex ratio, marine turtle nest location, plastic pollution, sea level rise temperature-dependent sex determination, trade-off 1 2 2024 2024-02-01 10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.12.001 COLLEGE NANME Biosciences Geography and Physics School COLLEGE CODE BGPS Swansea University SU Library paid the OA fee (TA Institutional Deal) We thank the many volunteers on Diego Garcia for logistical and fieldwork support. We are also grateful for logistical and fieldwork support from BF BIOT and Milly Fellows. This work was supported by the Bertarelli Foundation as part of the Bertarelli Programme in Marine Science (projects 2017-4, 820633). 2024-05-31T13:07:35.0240878 2023-11-29T10:29:35.0394157 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences Holly Stokes 1 Nicole Esteban 0000-0003-4693-7221 2 Graeme C. Hays 3 65154__29446__2b95261877cb4e6ea68a63bf8783cb51.pdf 65154.VOR.pdf 2024-01-15T17:30:27.3033557 Output 1478496 application/pdf Version of Record true © 2023 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY licence. true eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title Nest site selection in sea turtles shows consistencies across the globe in the face of climate change
spellingShingle Nest site selection in sea turtles shows consistencies across the globe in the face of climate change
Holly Stokes
Nicole Esteban
title_short Nest site selection in sea turtles shows consistencies across the globe in the face of climate change
title_full Nest site selection in sea turtles shows consistencies across the globe in the face of climate change
title_fullStr Nest site selection in sea turtles shows consistencies across the globe in the face of climate change
title_full_unstemmed Nest site selection in sea turtles shows consistencies across the globe in the face of climate change
title_sort Nest site selection in sea turtles shows consistencies across the globe in the face of climate change
author_id_str_mv 6ee6932996059ed9e4d581641acce2f7
fb2e760b83b4580e7445092982f1f319
author_id_fullname_str_mv 6ee6932996059ed9e4d581641acce2f7_***_Holly Stokes
fb2e760b83b4580e7445092982f1f319_***_Nicole Esteban
author Holly Stokes
Nicole Esteban
author2 Holly Stokes
Nicole Esteban
Graeme C. Hays
format Journal article
container_title Animal Behaviour
container_volume 208
container_start_page 59
publishDate 2024
institution Swansea University
issn 0003-3472
doi_str_mv 10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.12.001
publisher Elsevier BV
college_str Faculty of Science and Engineering
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hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
department_str School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences
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description Sea turtles face a risk of extinction due to climate change causing warming of nests, which may increase both sex ratio skews, with fewer males being produced, and embryo mortality in nests. In theory, these threats could be mitigated by turtles switching their nest sites to cooler locations on beaches. We assessed nest positioning for green turtles, Chelonia mydas, in the Chagos Archipelago, a major nesting site in the Indian Ocean, and showed that nests were generally in vegetation at the back of the beach, where the risk of sea water inundation was lowest. The relatively few nests on the open beach were on average close to the vegetation. Sand temperatures at nest depths were similar across three beach zones (open sand, edge of vegetation, within the vegetation). Nest positioning was reviewed for 51 studies at 53 sites (including the current study) across the globe and across seven species: green turtles, hawksbills, Eretmochelys imbricata, loggerheads, Caretta caretta, leatherbacks, Dermochelys coriacea, olive ridleys, Lepidochelys olivacea, Kemp's ridleys, Lepidochelys kempii, and flatbacks, Natator depressus. Both in the Chagos Archipelago and across the globe studies show turtles generally tend to crawl a sufficient distance to minimize sea water overwash of nests, which can kill embryos. Hence maximizing embryo survival, rather than considerations of hatchling sex ratios, seems to be the main driver for nest positioning and so we conclude that sea turtles are, generally, unlikely to switch to select cooler beach sites to mitigate climate warming.
published_date 2024-02-01T05:43:14Z
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