Effect of rainfall on loggerhead turtle nest temperatures, sand temperatures and hatchling sex

By A. Lolavar, J. Wyneken. 2015

85 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Marine turtles deposit their eggs in underground nests where they develop unattended and without parental care. Incubation temperature varies with environmental conditions, including rainfall, sun/shade and sand type, and affects developmental rates, hatch and emergence success, and embryonic sex. We documented (1) rainfall and sand temperature relationships and (2) rainfall, nest temperatures and hatchling sex ratios at a loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) nesting beach in Boca Raton, Florida, USA, across the 2010 to 2013 nesting seasons. Rainfall data collected concur- rently with sand temperatures at different depths showed that light rainfall affected surface sand; effects of the heaviest rainfall events tended to lower sand temperatures but the temperature fluctu- ations were small once upper nest depths were reached. This is important in understanding the po- tential impacts of rainfall as a modifier of nest temperatures, as such changes can be quite small. Nest temperature profiles were synchronized with rainfall data from weather services to identify re- lationships with hatchling sex ratios. The sex of each turtle was verified laparoscopically to provide empirical measures of sex ratio for the nest and nesting beach. The majority of hatchlings in the samples were female, suggesting that across the 4 seasons most nest temperatures were not suffi- ciently cool to produce males. However, in the early portion of the nesting season and in wet years, nest temperatures were cooler, and significantly more males hatched.

Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/092e4da90467080938f38143c0b552e46dee5b3f

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

Citations in the corpus

Are we working towards global research priorities for management and conservation of sea turtles (2016, background): “Lolavar & Wyneken (2015) 16. dei Marcovaldi et al. (2014) 17.”