Home ranges of East Pacific green turtles Chelonia mydas in a highly urbanized temperate foraging ground
نویسندگان
چکیده
Green sea turtles Chelonia mydas use coastal areas as foraging grounds for the majority of their lives. Human development of coastlines is increasing, but the effects of urban development of foraging grounds on green turtles are poorly understood. We used acoustic telemetry to determine home ranges of green turtles during 2009 to 2011 in San Diego Bay, California, USA, which is a highly urbanized temperate foraging area. Adult and juvenile turtles (n = 25, straight carapace length = 54.9 to 102.5 cm) were tracked for up to 370 d. Based on the fixed kernel densities of 15 turtles, we found individual home range areas (95% utilization distribution) were 2.09 to 8.70 km2 (mean ± SE = 5.51 ± 0.57 km2), where each turtle used 1 or 2 core activity areas (50% utilization distribution). The home ranges of all turtles were exclusively in the southern portion of San Diego Bay, where eelgrass Zostera marina is abundant and where human activity is the lowest within the bay. Core activity areas coincided with eelgrass distribution or occurred adjacent to the warm water-effluent outfall of a power plant. Results from our study suggest that south San Diego Bay serves as important turtle habitat within the bay. Future monitoring is required to document the potential effects of changing environmental conditions, including closure of the power plant, on green turtles residing in San Diego Bay.
منابع مشابه
Fine scale diel movement of the east Pacific green turtle, Chelonia mydas, in a highly urbanized foraging environment
متن کامل
Multinational Tagging Efforts Illustrate Regional Scale of Distribution and Threats for East Pacific Green Turtles (Chelonia mydas agassizii)
To further describe movement patterns and distribution of East Pacific green turtles (Chelonia mydas agassizii) and to determine threat levels for this species within the Eastern Pacific. In order to do this we combined published data from existing flipper tagging and early satellite tracking studies with data from an additional 12 satellite tracked green turtles (1996-2006). Three of these wer...
متن کاملEvaluation of hematological and plasma biochemical parameters in green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas Linnaeus, 1758) from nesting colonies of the northern coast the Sea of Oman
The green turtle (Chelonia mydas) has been a species of global concern for decades. As an attempt to study health status of nesting green turtles, Blood biochemistry and hematological values were obtained from 18 clinically normal, nesting female green sea turtles on the northern coast of the sea of Oman. Mean curved carapace length (CCL) was 111±4 cm with a range of 103—122 cm. Barnacles were ...
متن کاملImmature East Pacific Green Turtles (Chelonia mydas) Use Multiple Foraging Areas off the Pacific Coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico: First Evidence from Mark-Recapture Data
Since 2001, Grupo Tortuguero has been conducting monthly inwater monitoring of East Pacific green turtles (Chelonia mydas), also known as black turtles, at four neritic foraging areas (Bahı́a Magdalena, Laguna San Ignacio, Punta Abreojos, Laguna Ojo de Liebre) along the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico. Extensive tagging (883 turtles tagged of 1,183 turtles captured) and recaptures (...
متن کاملFirst record of hybridization between green Chelonia mydas and hawksbill Eretmochelys imbricata sea turtles in the Southeast Pacific
Hybridization among sea turtle species has been widely reported in the Atlantic Ocean, but their detection in the Pacific Ocean is limited to just two individual hybrid turtles, in the northern hemisphere. Herein, we report, for the first time in the southeast Pacific, the presence of a sea turtle hybrid between the green turtle Chelonia mydas and the hawksbill turtle Eretmochelys imbricata. Th...
متن کامل