Stormy oceans are associated with declines in sea turtle hatching

Stormy oceans are associated with declines in sea turtle hatching

Many sea turtle populations are below 10% of their pre-Columbian numbers [1-4]. Though historic and systematic over-exploitation is the principal cause of these declines, sea turtles face similar threats today. Adults and juveniles are actively hunted and commercial fisheries catch them incidentally. Nesting suffers from beach development, egg poaching and the poaching of nesting females. Accom...

Hydrogen from Stormy Oceans

Stormy Seas for Some North American Songbirds: Are Declines Related to Severe Storms During Migration?

‘‘Many large flocks of birds flew over, coming from the north and flying to the SW. They were more varied in kind than any we had seen before and they were land birds . . . . I know that most of the islands discovered by the Portuguese have been found because of birds.’’—Christopher Columbus, east of Bermuda, 7 October 1492 Several hypotheses have been presented to explain population declines i...

Are thermal barriers "higher" in deep sea turtle nests?

Thermal tolerances are affected by the range of temperatures that species encounter in their habitat. Daniel Janzen hypothesized in his "Why mountain passes are higher in the tropics" that temperature gradients were effective barriers to animal movements where climatic uniformity was high. Sea turtles bury their eggs providing some thermal stability that varies with depth. We assessed the relat...

Isotopes in sea turtle barnacles

Stable isotopes in barnacles as a tool to understand green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) regional movement patterns M. Detjen, E. Sterling, and A. Gómez Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, 1200 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027, USA Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History, 200 Central Park West, New York, NY 1002...