Grant: 09-007R
Project Title: Where are Florida's "Lost-year" Green Turtles? Using Trace Elements to Address the Mystery
Project Manager: Dr. Karen Bjorndal
Organization: University of Florida - Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research (Research and Educational Institute)
Grant Amount: $20790.00
Completion Date:

Summary: Sea turtles, like many other marine organisms, move among their foraging grounds and between their foraging and reproductive areas at different stages of their life cycle. For all but one sea turtle species (the loggerhead, Caretta caretta), the location of the oceanic developmental areas, the duration of time turtles spend in these areas, and how these oceanic areas connect with the neritic (over continental shelf) foraging grounds remain unknown, resulting in many management and conservation challenges. Florida's sea turtles provide an excellent opportunity to learn more about the distribution of oceanic juvenile sea turtles. Using stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen, Reich et al. (2007) identified the type of habitat utilized by post-hatchling green turtles (Chelonia mydas) in the North Atlantic, but the locations of these developmental areas remain unknown. One possible solution to this mystery is to analyze the regional variability of trace elements in sea turtles to find the geographic location and number of the oceanic foraging areas of Florida green turtles and determine the connectivity patterns between oceanic and foraging habitats.

Results: