Large‐scale movements and high‐use areas of western Pacific leatherback turtles, Dermochelys coriacea

By S. Benson, Tomoharu Eguchi, D. Foley, Karin A. Forney, H. Bailey, Creusa Hitipeuw, Betuel Samber, R. F. Tapilatu, Vagi Rei, P. Ramohia and 2 more. 2011

151 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The western Pacific leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), one of three genetically distinct stocks in the Indo-Pacific region, has declined markedly during past decades. This metapopulation nests year-round at beaches of several western Pacific island nations and has been documented through genetic analysis and telemetry studies to occur in multiple regions of the Pacific Ocean. To provide a large-scale perspective of their movements, high-use areas, and habitat associations, we report and synthesize results of 126 satellite telemetry deployments conducted on leatherbacks at western Pacific nesting beaches and at one eastern Pacific foraging ground during 2000-2007. A Bayesian switching state-space model was applied to raw Argos-acquired surface locations to estimate daily positions and behavioral mode (either transiting or area-restricted search) for each turtle. Monthly areas of high use were identified for post- nesting periods using kernel density estimation. There was a clear separation of migratory destinations for boreal summer vs. boreal winter nesters. Leatherbacks that nested during boreal summer moved into Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) of the temperate North Pacific Ocean or into tropical waters of the South China Sea. Turtles that nested during boreal winter moved into temperate and tropical LMEs of the southern hemisphere. Area-restricted search occurred in temperate and tropical waters at diverse pelagic and coastal regions exhibiting a wide range of oceanographic features, including mesoscale eddies, coastal retention areas, current boundaries, or stationary fronts, all of which are known mechanisms for aggregating leatherback prey. Use of the most distant and temperate foraging ground, the California Current LME, required a 10-12 month trans-Pacific migration and commonly involved multiple years of migrating between high-latitude summer foraging grounds and low-latitude eastern tropical Pacific wintering areas without returning to western Pacific nesting beaches. In contrast, tropical foraging destinations were reached within 5-7 months and appeared to support year-round foraging, potentially allowing a more rapid return to nesting beaches. Based on these observations, we hypothesize that demographic differences are likely among nesting females using different LMEs of the Indo-Pacific. The differences in movements and foraging strategies underscore the importance of and the need for ecosystem-based management and coordinated Pacific-wide conservation efforts.

Subfields: Ecology, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2129d38295406f2be52c0d92b8a0e9810153ec65

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Citations in the corpus

Ontogeny of long distance migration (2014, background): “They consequently forage in transit and have a pattern of broad-scale pan-oceanic movements that can extend up to 11 000 km from their breeding grounds (e.g., Benson et al. 2011).”
Are we working towards global research priorities for management and conservation of sea turtles (2016, background): “…partnerships that have allowed assessment of the spatial distribution of populations over entire ocean basins, such as for leatherback turtles in the Atlantic, where it has been revealed how individuals target productive areas for foraging (Fossette et al. 2010, 2014, Benson et al. 2011).”
Oceanic dispersal of juvenile leatherback turtles: going beyond passive drift modeling (2012, background): “This area is visited by only 2% of the simulated Jamursba-Medi juveniles, while it was actually exploited by 13 out of 37 adults tracked by Benson et al. (2011).”
Ontogeny in marine tagging and tracking science: technologies and data gaps (2012, background): “…have revealed cross-oceanic migrations by a number of species such as loggerheads and leatherbacks (Hughes et al. 1998, Shillinger et al. 2008, Benson et al. 2011, Witt et al. 2011), as well as fidelity to foraging grounds over the course of years (e.g. Limpus et al. 1992, Limpus & Limpus…”
Global patterns for upper ceilings on migration distance in sea turtles and comparisons with fish, birds and mammals (2013, background): “Funtional Ecology © 2013 British Ecological Society, Functional Ecology, 27, 748–756 individuals (Shillinger et al. 2008; Benson et al. 2011).”
Predicting cetacean abundance and distribution in a changing climate (2018, methodology): “…have been used to predict the abundance and distribution of seabirds, fish, sea turtles and ceta‐ ceans, and to evaluate risk from human activities (Benson et al., 2011; Forney, Becker, Foley, Barlow, & Oleson, 2015; Gilles et al., 2016; Hammond et al., 2013; Leathwick, Elith, Francis, Hastie, &…”
Temporal resolutions in species distribution models of highly mobile marine animals: Recommendations for ecologists and managers (2017, background): “At intermediate scales, animals associate with ephemeral and seasonally occurring oceanographic features such as eddies and fronts that extend over tens to hundreds of kilometres and represent suitable foraging habitats (Benson et al., 2011; Hobday & Hartog, 2014; Tew Kai & Marsac, 2010).”