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Long-Term Climate Forcing in Loggerhead Sea Turtle Nesting

The long-term variability of marine turtle populations remains poorly understood, limiting science and management. Here we use basin-scale climate indices and regional surface temperatures to estimate loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) nesting at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Borrow...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Van Houtan, Kyle S., Halley, John M.
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3083431/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21589639
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0019043
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author Van Houtan, Kyle S.
Halley, John M.
author_facet Van Houtan, Kyle S.
Halley, John M.
author_sort Van Houtan, Kyle S.
collection PubMed
description The long-term variability of marine turtle populations remains poorly understood, limiting science and management. Here we use basin-scale climate indices and regional surface temperatures to estimate loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) nesting at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Borrowing from fisheries research, our models investigate how oceanographic processes influence juvenile recruitment and regulate population dynamics. This novel approach finds local populations in the North Pacific and Northwest Atlantic are regionally synchronized and strongly correlated to ocean conditions—such that climate models alone explain up to 88% of the observed changes over the past several decades. In addition to its performance, climate-based modeling also provides mechanistic forecasts of historical and future population changes. Hindcasts in both regions indicate climatic conditions may have been a factor in recent declines, but future forecasts are mixed. Available climatic data suggests the Pacific population will be significantly reduced by 2040, but indicates the Atlantic population may increase substantially. These results do not exonerate anthropogenic impacts, but highlight the significance of bottom-up oceanographic processes to marine organisms. Future studies should consider environmental baselines in assessments of marine turtle population variability and persistence.
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spelling pubmed-30834312011-05-17 Long-Term Climate Forcing in Loggerhead Sea Turtle Nesting Van Houtan, Kyle S. Halley, John M. PLoS One Research Article The long-term variability of marine turtle populations remains poorly understood, limiting science and management. Here we use basin-scale climate indices and regional surface temperatures to estimate loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) nesting at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Borrowing from fisheries research, our models investigate how oceanographic processes influence juvenile recruitment and regulate population dynamics. This novel approach finds local populations in the North Pacific and Northwest Atlantic are regionally synchronized and strongly correlated to ocean conditions—such that climate models alone explain up to 88% of the observed changes over the past several decades. In addition to its performance, climate-based modeling also provides mechanistic forecasts of historical and future population changes. Hindcasts in both regions indicate climatic conditions may have been a factor in recent declines, but future forecasts are mixed. Available climatic data suggests the Pacific population will be significantly reduced by 2040, but indicates the Atlantic population may increase substantially. These results do not exonerate anthropogenic impacts, but highlight the significance of bottom-up oceanographic processes to marine organisms. Future studies should consider environmental baselines in assessments of marine turtle population variability and persistence. Public Library of Science 2011-04-27 /pmc/articles/PMC3083431/ /pubmed/21589639 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0019043 Text en This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain declaration, which stipulates that, once placed in the public domain, this work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.
spellingShingle Research Article
Van Houtan, Kyle S.
Halley, John M.
Long-Term Climate Forcing in Loggerhead Sea Turtle Nesting
title Long-Term Climate Forcing in Loggerhead Sea Turtle Nesting
title_full Long-Term Climate Forcing in Loggerhead Sea Turtle Nesting
title_fullStr Long-Term Climate Forcing in Loggerhead Sea Turtle Nesting
title_full_unstemmed Long-Term Climate Forcing in Loggerhead Sea Turtle Nesting
title_short Long-Term Climate Forcing in Loggerhead Sea Turtle Nesting
title_sort long-term climate forcing in loggerhead sea turtle nesting
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3083431/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21589639
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0019043
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