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Are thermal barriers "higher" in deep sea turtle nests?
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

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

Pilar Santidrián Tomillo, Luis Fonseca, Frank V Paladino, James R Spotila and Daniel Oro
PloS one, v 12(5), pp e0177256-e0177256
2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0177256
PMID: 28545092
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0177256View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)CC BY V4.0,  Open

Abstract

Animals Costa Rica Female Nesting Behavior - physiology Ovum - physiology Temperature Turtles - physiology
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 relationship between thermal uniformity and thermal tolerance in nests of three species of sea turtles. We considered that barriers were "high" when small thermal changes had comparatively large effects and "low" when the effects were small. Mean temperature was lower and fluctuated less in species that dig deeper nests. Thermal barriers were comparatively "higher" in leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) nests, which were the deepest, as embryo mortality increased at lower "high" temperatures than in olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) and green turtle (Chelonia mydas) nests. Sea turtles have temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD) and embryo mortality increased as temperature approached the upper end of the transitional range of temperatures (TRT) that produces both sexes (temperature producing 100% female offspring) in leatherback and olive ridley turtles. As thermal barriers are "higher" in some species than in others, the effects of climate warming on embryo mortality is likely to vary among sea turtles. Population resilience to climate warming may also depend on the balance between temperatures that produce female offspring and those that reduce embryo survival.

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31 citations in Web of Science
31 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#15 Life on Land
#13 Climate Action

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Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Ecology
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