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Ontogeny and ecological significance of metabolic rates in sea turtle hatchlings

BACKGROUND: Sea turtle hatchlings must avoid numerous predators during dispersal from their nesting beaches to foraging grounds. Hatchlings minimise time spent in predator-dense neritic waters by swimming almost continuously for approximately the first 24 h post-emergence, termed the ‘frenzy’. Post-...

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Autores principales: Gatto, Christopher R., Jones, T. Todd, Imlach, Brittany, Reina, Richard D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8818257/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35123495
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12983-022-00451-2
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author Gatto, Christopher R.
Jones, T. Todd
Imlach, Brittany
Reina, Richard D.
author_facet Gatto, Christopher R.
Jones, T. Todd
Imlach, Brittany
Reina, Richard D.
author_sort Gatto, Christopher R.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Sea turtle hatchlings must avoid numerous predators during dispersal from their nesting beaches to foraging grounds. Hatchlings minimise time spent in predator-dense neritic waters by swimming almost continuously for approximately the first 24 h post-emergence, termed the ‘frenzy’. Post-frenzy, hatchling activity gradually declines as they swim in less predator-dense pelagic waters. It is well documented that hatchlings exhibit elevated metabolic rates during the frenzy to power their almost continuous swimming, but studies on post-frenzy MRs are sparse. RESULTS: We measured the frenzy and post-frenzy oxygen consumption of hatchlings of five species of sea turtle at different activity levels and ages to compare the ontogeny of mass-specific hatchling metabolic rates. Maximal metabolic rates were always higher than resting metabolic rates, but metabolic rates during routine swimming resembled resting metabolic rates in leatherback turtle hatchlings during the frenzy and post-frenzy, and in loggerhead hatchlings during the post-frenzy. Crawling metabolic rates did not differ among species, but green turtles had the highest metabolic rates during frenzy and post-frenzy swimming. CONCLUSIONS: Differences in metabolic rate reflect the varying dispersal stratagems of each species and have important implications for dispersal ability, yolk consumption and survival. Our results provide the foundations for links between the physiology and ecology of dispersal of sea turtles.
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spelling pubmed-88182572022-02-07 Ontogeny and ecological significance of metabolic rates in sea turtle hatchlings Gatto, Christopher R. Jones, T. Todd Imlach, Brittany Reina, Richard D. Front Zool Research BACKGROUND: Sea turtle hatchlings must avoid numerous predators during dispersal from their nesting beaches to foraging grounds. Hatchlings minimise time spent in predator-dense neritic waters by swimming almost continuously for approximately the first 24 h post-emergence, termed the ‘frenzy’. Post-frenzy, hatchling activity gradually declines as they swim in less predator-dense pelagic waters. It is well documented that hatchlings exhibit elevated metabolic rates during the frenzy to power their almost continuous swimming, but studies on post-frenzy MRs are sparse. RESULTS: We measured the frenzy and post-frenzy oxygen consumption of hatchlings of five species of sea turtle at different activity levels and ages to compare the ontogeny of mass-specific hatchling metabolic rates. Maximal metabolic rates were always higher than resting metabolic rates, but metabolic rates during routine swimming resembled resting metabolic rates in leatherback turtle hatchlings during the frenzy and post-frenzy, and in loggerhead hatchlings during the post-frenzy. Crawling metabolic rates did not differ among species, but green turtles had the highest metabolic rates during frenzy and post-frenzy swimming. CONCLUSIONS: Differences in metabolic rate reflect the varying dispersal stratagems of each species and have important implications for dispersal ability, yolk consumption and survival. Our results provide the foundations for links between the physiology and ecology of dispersal of sea turtles. BioMed Central 2022-02-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8818257/ /pubmed/35123495 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12983-022-00451-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Gatto, Christopher R.
Jones, T. Todd
Imlach, Brittany
Reina, Richard D.
Ontogeny and ecological significance of metabolic rates in sea turtle hatchlings
title Ontogeny and ecological significance of metabolic rates in sea turtle hatchlings
title_full Ontogeny and ecological significance of metabolic rates in sea turtle hatchlings
title_fullStr Ontogeny and ecological significance of metabolic rates in sea turtle hatchlings
title_full_unstemmed Ontogeny and ecological significance of metabolic rates in sea turtle hatchlings
title_short Ontogeny and ecological significance of metabolic rates in sea turtle hatchlings
title_sort ontogeny and ecological significance of metabolic rates in sea turtle hatchlings
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8818257/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35123495
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12983-022-00451-2
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