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The secret life of baby turtles: A novel system to predict hatchling emergence, detect infertile nests, and remotely monitor sea turtle nest events

Current understanding of sea turtle nesting, hatching, and emergence events has been largely limited to observable events on the surface of the sand, though recent approaches using audio or visual equipment have allowed scientists to better understand some underground nest phenomena. We used a techn...

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Autores principales: Clabough, Erin B. D., Kaplan, Eric, Hermeyer, David, Zimmerman, Thomas, Chamberlin, Joshua, Wantman, Samuel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9605334/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36288397
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275088
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author Clabough, Erin B. D.
Kaplan, Eric
Hermeyer, David
Zimmerman, Thomas
Chamberlin, Joshua
Wantman, Samuel
author_facet Clabough, Erin B. D.
Kaplan, Eric
Hermeyer, David
Zimmerman, Thomas
Chamberlin, Joshua
Wantman, Samuel
author_sort Clabough, Erin B. D.
collection PubMed
description Current understanding of sea turtle nesting, hatching, and emergence events has been largely limited to observable events on the surface of the sand, though recent approaches using audio or visual equipment have allowed scientists to better understand some underground nest phenomena. We used a technology-based approach to define motion-related Caretta caretta hatching and emergence nest events. We describe a novel low-cost, accelerometer-based system called TurtleSense that can detect movement and temperature within sea turtle nests remotely. TurtleSense is successfully able to specifically detect motion within sea turtle nests over the entire course of incubation. This system allows for the identification of infertile nests and the detection of four predictable sequential developmental activity patterns in viable nests, including a hatch and posthatch period, the timing of which can be used to tightly predict hatchling emergence events almost to the day. TurtleSense provides a much better understanding about what is happening in the nest before emergence and allows for the generation of a theory of the mechanism that triggers mass emergence. Our results suggest that motion plays a large role in hatchling communication and that the timing of emergence events may be related to the cessation of movement within the nest. Current management of sea turtle nesting events is primarily driven by counting the number of days since the nest was laid, with further safeguards placed at the nest upon subsequent visual observation of depression or emergence events. Use of TurtleSense technology can impact nest management and conservation efforts, allowing organizations to use this motion data to more tightly predict emergence dates for sea turtle hatchlings and to use viability data to inform nest management decisions.
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spelling pubmed-96053342022-10-27 The secret life of baby turtles: A novel system to predict hatchling emergence, detect infertile nests, and remotely monitor sea turtle nest events Clabough, Erin B. D. Kaplan, Eric Hermeyer, David Zimmerman, Thomas Chamberlin, Joshua Wantman, Samuel PLoS One Research Article Current understanding of sea turtle nesting, hatching, and emergence events has been largely limited to observable events on the surface of the sand, though recent approaches using audio or visual equipment have allowed scientists to better understand some underground nest phenomena. We used a technology-based approach to define motion-related Caretta caretta hatching and emergence nest events. We describe a novel low-cost, accelerometer-based system called TurtleSense that can detect movement and temperature within sea turtle nests remotely. TurtleSense is successfully able to specifically detect motion within sea turtle nests over the entire course of incubation. This system allows for the identification of infertile nests and the detection of four predictable sequential developmental activity patterns in viable nests, including a hatch and posthatch period, the timing of which can be used to tightly predict hatchling emergence events almost to the day. TurtleSense provides a much better understanding about what is happening in the nest before emergence and allows for the generation of a theory of the mechanism that triggers mass emergence. Our results suggest that motion plays a large role in hatchling communication and that the timing of emergence events may be related to the cessation of movement within the nest. Current management of sea turtle nesting events is primarily driven by counting the number of days since the nest was laid, with further safeguards placed at the nest upon subsequent visual observation of depression or emergence events. Use of TurtleSense technology can impact nest management and conservation efforts, allowing organizations to use this motion data to more tightly predict emergence dates for sea turtle hatchlings and to use viability data to inform nest management decisions. Public Library of Science 2022-10-26 /pmc/articles/PMC9605334/ /pubmed/36288397 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275088 Text en © 2022 Clabough et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Clabough, Erin B. D.
Kaplan, Eric
Hermeyer, David
Zimmerman, Thomas
Chamberlin, Joshua
Wantman, Samuel
The secret life of baby turtles: A novel system to predict hatchling emergence, detect infertile nests, and remotely monitor sea turtle nest events
title The secret life of baby turtles: A novel system to predict hatchling emergence, detect infertile nests, and remotely monitor sea turtle nest events
title_full The secret life of baby turtles: A novel system to predict hatchling emergence, detect infertile nests, and remotely monitor sea turtle nest events
title_fullStr The secret life of baby turtles: A novel system to predict hatchling emergence, detect infertile nests, and remotely monitor sea turtle nest events
title_full_unstemmed The secret life of baby turtles: A novel system to predict hatchling emergence, detect infertile nests, and remotely monitor sea turtle nest events
title_short The secret life of baby turtles: A novel system to predict hatchling emergence, detect infertile nests, and remotely monitor sea turtle nest events
title_sort secret life of baby turtles: a novel system to predict hatchling emergence, detect infertile nests, and remotely monitor sea turtle nest events
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9605334/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36288397
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275088
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