Margaret M. Lamont
Ikuko Fujisaki
Anton D. Tucker
Raymond R. Carthy
Kristen M. Hart
2012
<p><span>Designing conservation strategies that protect wide-ranging marine species is a significant challenge, but integrating regional telemetry datasets and synthesizing modeled movements and behavior offer promise for uncovering distinct at-sea areas that are important habitats for imperiled marine species. Movement paths of 10 satellite-tracked female loggerheads (</span><i>Caretta caretta</i><span>) from three separate subpopulations in the Gulf of Mexico, USA, revealed migration to discrete foraging sites in two common areas at-sea in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Foraging sites were 102–904</span><span> </span><span>km away from nesting and tagging sites, and located off southwest Florida and the northern Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Within 3–35</span><span> </span><span>days, turtles migrated to foraging sites where they all displayed high site fidelity over time. Core-use foraging areas were 13.0–335.2</span><span> </span><span>km</span><sup>2</sup><span> in size, in water <50</span><span> </span><span>m deep, within a mean distance to nearest coastline of 58.5</span><span> </span><span>km, and in areas of relatively high net primary productivity. The existence of shared regional foraging sites highlights an opportunity for marine conservation strategies to protect important at-sea habitats for these imperiled marine turtles, in both USA and international waters. Until now, knowledge of important at-sea foraging areas for adult loggerheads in the Gulf of Mexico has been limited. To better understand the spatial distribution of marine turtles that have complex life-histories, we propose further integration of disparate tracking data-sets at the oceanic scale along with modeling of movements to identify critical at-sea foraging habitats where individuals may be resident during non-nesting periods.</span></p>
application/pdf
10.1016/j.biocon.2011.10.030
en
Elsevier
Common coastal foraging areas for loggerheads in the Gulf of Mexico: Opportunities for marine conservation
article