Seawater irrigation on nests can increase male marine turtle production
Young, Larissa R., Booth, David T., Smith, Caitlin E., and Madden Hof, Christine A. (2023) Seawater irrigation on nests can increase male marine turtle production. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 718. pp. 85-97.
|
PDF (Published Version)
- Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (423kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Global warming is increasing marine turtle nesting beach sand temperatures throughout the world. All marine turtles have temperature-dependent sex determination, with female hatchlings produced at warmer incubation temperatures. These warmer sand temperatures are causing a scarcity of male hatchlings at many nesting beaches. A range of mitigation strategies including shading and freshwater irrigation are being trialled at marine turtle nesting beaches around the world to address this issue. Because seawater is always abundant at marine turtle nesting beaches, we trialled a number of intense, one-off seawater irrigation experiments (equivalent to 100 and 200 mm rainfall) to test if male green turtle Chelonia mydas hatchling production could be increased without decreasing overall hatching success at Heron Island, southern Great Barrier Reef, Australia. We found that different combinations of seawater volume and temperature could produce a short-term drop in nest temperature by 2°C. When applied during the middle of embryonic development, these irrigation treatments could increase the proportion of male hatchlings compared to non-irrigated control nests, with less than a 10% decrease in hatching success. Hence, seawater irrigation has the potential to be a viable management strategy to increase the proportion of male marine turtle hatchlings at beaches that produce all, or nearly all, female hatchlings.
| Item ID: | 93602 |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1616-1599 |
| Copyright Information: | © The authors 2023. Open Access under Creative Commons by Attribution Licence. Use, distribution and reproduction are un restricted. Authors and original publication must be credited. |
| Date Deposited: | 18 Aug 2026 02:04 |
| FoR Codes: | 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 19 ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY, CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATURAL HAZARDS > 1903 Mitigation of climate change > 190301 Climate change mitigation strategies @ 100% |
| More Statistics |
Actions (Repository Staff Only)
 |
Item Control Page |