Regional Management Units for Marine Turtles: A Novel Framework for Prioritizing Conservation and Research across Multiple Scales

By Bryan P. Wallace, A. Dimatteo, Brendan J. Hurley, Elena M. Finkbeiner, A. Bolten, M. Chaloupka, B. Hutchinson, F. Abreu-Grobois, Diego Amorocho, K. Bjorndal and 22 more. PLoS ONE, 2010

688 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background Resolving threats to widely distributed marine megafauna requires definition of the geographic distributions of both the threats as well as the population unit(s) of interest. In turn, because individual threats can operate on varying spatial scales, their impacts can affect different segments of a population of the same species. Therefore, integration of multiple tools and techniques — including site-based monitoring, genetic analyses, mark-recapture studies and telemetry — can facilitate robust definitions of population segments at multiple biological and spatial scales to address different management and research challenges. Methodology/Principal Findings To address these issues for marine turtles, we collated all available studies on marine turtle biogeography, including nesting sites, population abundances and trends, population genetics, and satellite telemetry. We georeferenced this information to generate separate layers for nesting sites, genetic stocks, and core distributions of population segments of all marine turtle species. We then spatially integrated this information from fine- to coarse-spatial scales to develop nested envelope models, or Regional Management Units (RMUs), for marine turtles globally. Conclusions/Significance The RMU framework is a solution to the challenge of how to organize marine turtles into units of protection above the level of nesting populations, but below the level of species, within regional entities that might be on independent evolutionary trajectories. Among many potential applications, RMUs provide a framework for identifying data gaps, assessing high diversity areas for multiple species and genetic stocks, and evaluating conservation status of marine turtles. Furthermore, RMUs allow for identification of geographic barriers to gene flow, and can provide valuable guidance to marine spatial planning initiatives that integrate spatial distributions of protected species and human activities. In addition, the RMU framework — including maps and supporting metadata — will be an iterative, user-driven tool made publicly available in an online application for comments, improvements, download and analysis.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a053a005743127f28e1877c0d4524af32cc031a8

How researchers see this paper

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

In Ecological Modeling

1. Matthew H. Godfrey
2. S. Cooke
3. G. Hays
4. M. Louzao
5. C. Simpfendorfer
6. K. Shanker
7. K. Holland
8. AC Broderick

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

1. G. Hays
2. Bj Godley
3. AC Broderick
4. M. Chaloupka
5. P. Casale
6. G. Schofield
7. K. Bjorndal
8. Sebastian Tröeng

Citations in the corpus

• Ghosts of the coast: global extinction risk and conservation of sawfishes (2016, background): “It is essential to first develop a global overview of species conservation status and actions needed as has been done here, and for similarly distributed marine turtles (Wallace et al., 2010, 2011).”
• Population stock structure of leatherback turtles (Dermochelyscoriacea) in the Atlantic revealed using mtDNA and microsatellite markers (2013, background): “On a broader scale, Wallace et al. (2010) describe a framework for sea turtle conservation with nesting populations as fine-scale management units and regional locations connected by gene flow as regional management units (RMU), somewhat similar to DPSs.”
• Protected species use of a coastal marine migratory corridor connecting marine protected areas (2014, background): “1a; Wallace et al. 2010). nesting occurs during the austral summer months (november–January), with up to four clutches being laid at approximately 13.8 ± 0.6 day intervals in a single season (Pendoley et al. 2014), and females returning to breed every 1–3 years (Hamann et al. 2003; limpus 2009).…”
• Satellite tracking large numbers of individuals to infer population level dispersal and core areas for the protection of an endangered species (2013, background): “and north-west Atlantic (Wallace et al., 2010), with green”
• Global Conservation Priorities for Marine Turtles (2011, background): “These observations indicate that understanding biogeographical factors that influence the biology and ecology of marine turtle RMUs, as well as the anthropogenic pressures on those RMUs, will improve status assessments and inform conservation strategies to protect or recover RMUs [3].”
• DNA Sequencing as a Tool to Monitor Marine Ecological Status (2017, background): “Declining costs encourage sequencing as an alternative to traditional biodiversity monitoring (Bourlat et al., 2013) and supports continued advances in conservation biology (Wallace et al., 2010; Hancock-Hanser et al., 2013).”
• Mediterranean sea turtles: current knowledge and priorities for conservation and research (2018, neutral): “Only individuals from the Mediterranean RMU breed in the region.”
• Aquatic animal telemetry: A panoramic window into the underwater world (2015, methodology): “In the first integrated framework of its kind, biogeographic, genetic, and telemetry data on global turtle populations were used to define regional management units at multiple biological and spatial scales (85).”
• Conservation implications of sea turtle nesting trends: elusive recovery of a globally important loggerhead population (2019, background): “Of the 10 loggerhead Regional Management Units (RMU) identified by Wallace et al. (2010), the Northwest Atlantic is the largest (Casale and Tucker 2017).”
• Are we working towards global research priorities for management and conservation of sea turtles (2016, methodology): “Significant advancement has been made from the original global scale at species level to a new scale: the RMU (Wallace et al. 2010).”
• Climate influences the global distribution of sea turtle nesting (2013, background): “The tight link between current geographic patterns of nesting and climate, along with the dependence of developing embryos on nest microclimate, imply that regional or global changes in environmental conditions could differentially influence the distribution of sea turtle species, especially if diff”
• Migratory marine species: their status, threats and conservation management needs (2014, background): “…level impacts have been reported for seabirds (Anderson et al., 2011; Zydelis et al., 2013), sea turtles (Lewison et al., 2004; Moore et al., 2009; Wallace et al., 2010a; Fossette et al., 2014), marine mammals (Read et al., 2006; Moore et al., 2009; Reeves et al., 2013) and sharks (Camhi et al.,…”