Sea turtle nest success, defined as the number of eggs in a that successfully hatch and emerge, is closely linked to environmental conditions. Interacting biotic abiotic factors influence hatching hatchling emergence success. To date, combinations multiple interacting together, which result highly successful sea nests are not well understood. Using 25 years historic data local expert experience...

Wood Storks are federally and state-listed as Endangered in the southeastern United States. Since they are also wetland-dependent they are often an important consideration in permitting, and thus become key in development and management issues. Yet the information available for identifying and prioritizing stork colonies and feeding habitat is dated, and limited in type. Many colony sites have ...

The extensive Early Jurassic continental strata of southern Africa have yielded an exceptional record of dinosaurs that includes scores of partial to complete skeletons of the sauropodomorph Massospondylus, ranging from embryos to large adults. In 1976 an incomplete egg clutch including in ovo embryos of this dinosaur, the oldest known example in the fossil record, was collected from a road-cut...

Most species of marine turtle breed every loggerhead turtles. The median interval between nesting seasons for green turtles was 3 years, and for loggerhead two or more years and it is the norm for females to lay more than one clutch of eggs within a nesting season. turtles it was 2 years. Utilizing these parameters and available data from other beaches that are monitored Knowing the interval be...

Nesting by three species of marine turtles persists in the Dominican Republic, despite historic threats and long-term population decline. We conducted a genetic survey of marine turtles in the Dominican Republic in order to link them with other rookeries around the Caribbean. We sequenced a 740bp fragment of the control region of the mitochondrial DNA of 92 samples from three marine turtle spec...

Cooperative breeding and conspecific brood parasitism can both be favored by ecological saturation of breeding territories or nest sites. Here, we develop a model that links these alternative reproductive tactics by focusing on nonnesting females (S) that either breed cooperatively with a nesting female (N) or parasitize a third, outside host female (H). We find that cooperative breeding is mor...

Most wild animals show direct negative responses to human disturbance; however, disturbance may also have positive indirect effects by altering species interactions. In the Caribbean, introduced mongooses (Herpestes javanicus) are an important diurnal predator of the nests of critically endangered hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata). We asked whether daytime visitor activity could be...

Patterns of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation were used to analyse the population genetic structure of southwestern Indian Ocean green turtle (Chelonia mydas) populations. Analysis of sequence variation over 396 bp of the mtDNA control region revealed seven haplotypes among 288 individuals from 10 nesting sites in the Southwest Indian Ocean. This is the first time that Atlantic Ocean haplotyp...

Natal homing is a pattern of behavior in which animals migrate away from their geographic area of origin and then return to reproduce in the same location where they began life [1-3]. Although diverse long-distance migrants accomplish natal homing [1-8], little is known about how they do so. The enigma is epitomized by loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta), which leave their home beaches as ...