Isotopic variation, site fidelity, and foraging by loggerhead turtles in Shark Bay, Western Australia

Biology of sea turtles under risk from tiger sharks at a foraging ground

It is important to understand the population structure and space use of sea turtles because of their potential effects on the dynamics of nearshore ecosystems. Much of our current understanding is skewed because the ecology of sea turtles on their foraging grounds is known best from areas where there are, or have been, major human impacts. We studied green Chelonia mydas and loggerhead Caretta ...

Correcting for heterogeneous availability bias in surveys of long-diving marine turtles

Effective conservation requires reliable data on the abundance and distribution of animals in space and time. During ship-based or aerial surveys for diving marine vertebrates such as sea turtles and marine mammals, a proportion of animals in a surveyed area will be missed because they are diving and out of view. While it is likely that dive and surface times vary with environmental conditions,...

Shark-inflicted injury frequencies, escape ability, and habitat use of green and loggerhead turtles

Interactions between large marine predators and their prey are difficult to observe and little is known about the risk of predation faced by sea turtles. The frequency of predator-inflicted injuries, however, has afforded insights into the predation risk faced by many taxa. We measured the frequency of shark-inflicted injuries on green (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead (Caretta caretta) sea turtl...

Large-scale Movement Patterns of Male Loggerhead Sea Turtles (caretta Caretta) in Shark Bay, Australia

Characterizing the socially transmitted foraging tactic sponging by bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.) in the western gulf of Shark Bay, Western Australia

Individual foraging tactics are widespread in animals and have ecological and evolutionary implications. Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.) in Shark Bay, Western Australia, exhibit a foraging tactic involving tool use, called “sponging.” Sponging is vertically, socially transmitted through the matriline and, to date, has been described in detail in the eastern gulf of Shark Bay (ES...