The stomach contents of post-hatchling green and loggerhead sea turtles in the southwest Pacific: an insight into habitat association |
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Authors: | M C Boyle C J Limpus |
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Institution: | (1) School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Angus Smith Drive, Townsville, QLD, 4811, Australia;(2) Queensland Environmental Protection Agency, 160 Ann St, Brisbane, QLD, 4000, Australia |
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Abstract: | Dietary information obtained from stomach contents can provide a wealth of information on an animal’s ecology. Where animals
are cryptic, such as the post-hatchling life history stage of a sea turtle, the ecological insight that dietary analyses can
provide, may be otherwise unobtainable. Investigations into post-hatchling turtle stomach contents have found planktonic organisms,
dominated by pelagic molluscs and crustaceans, hydrozoans, Sargassum and fish eggs. The nature of these dietary organisms provides evidence for the widely accepted hypothesis that, with the
exception of the flatback turtle (Natator depressus), the post-hatchling stage of a sea turtle’s life history is pelagic and oceanic. As the majority of studies that have investigated
the stomach contents of post-hatchling sea turtles have been conducted on loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) in the northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, insight derived from dietary investigations into post-hatchling ecology is
biased. This study investigates the diet of post-hatchling green turtles (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead turtles in the southwest Pacific Ocean. Stomach contents were obtained from 55 green and loggerhead post-hatchling
turtles that had stranded or been consumed by Coryphaena hippurus. Our findings demonstrate that loggerhead and green post-hatchlings in the southwest Pacific share similar feeding ecology
and feed on a variety of neustonic items that are indicative of an oceanic and pelagic existence. The dietary items consumed
by both species investigated belong to similar taxonomic groups as those found in previous studies with species level distinctions
occurring owing to the different geographical location. |
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