Webster, Emily G., Hamann, Mark, Shimada, Takahiro, Limpus, Colin, and Duce, Stephanie (2022) Space-use patterns of green turtles in industrial coastal foraging habitat: Challenges and opportunities for informing management with a large satellite tracking dataset. Aquatic Conservation: marine and freshwater ecosystems, 32 (6). pp. 1041-1056.

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Abstract

Increasing overlap between anthropogenic activities and wildlife can lead to problematic human–wildlife interactions. To manage these, an understanding of animal space-use patterns, with sufficient temporal and spatial detail is required. Satellite telemetry can provide such detailed data; however, the cost of tracking units places a significant limitation on sample size.

Satellite tracks for 72 green turtles were consolidated through collaboration with multiple entities over 8 years at seven sites within a large industrial port contributing to an ecological monitoring initiative to minimize impacts of planned developments.

This study aims to determine the minimum number of satellite-tracked green turtles required to represent spatial distribution patterns in the foraging ground and to evaluate factors underpinning differences in distribution and site fidelity metrics to inform appropriate management strategies.

An autocorrelated kernel density estimator was used to construct 95% utilization distributions for individual turtles during each calendar season. Percentage overlap between pairs of seasonal utilization distributions was calculated as a measure of short-term site fidelity. Mechanistic range shift analysis was applied to detect significant deviations from range residency behaviour.

Green turtles exhibited spatially confined ranges and remained faithful to their foraging area for periods of up to 260 days. Range size was significantly different between microhabitats and study years. Only 16 individuals (22% of tracked turtles) performed significant range shifts, indicating that occupied areas represent important habitats, and most turtles are unlikely to adjust their space-use in response to anthropogenic or natural disturbances.

Although this dataset represents an atypically large sample of satellite tracked individuals, representative data were obtained at only two key sites.

This study highlights the importance of evaluating clear objectives when sampling animals for satellite telemetry studies to obtain representation of sites, periods of interest, or age and sex cohorts.

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