Somatic growth function for immature loggerhead sea turtles, Caretta caretta, in southeastern U.S. waters

Somatic growth functions are critical parameters for understanding the life history of a species and for developing management plans for wild populations. Substantial effort has been invested in—and considerable information on growth rates has been gained from—mark-recapture studies of sea turtle populations (Chaloupka and Limpus, 1997; Chaloupka and Musick, 1997; Limpus and Chaloupka, 1997; Bjorndal et al., 2000). Although growth studies based on mark and recapture of individual animals yield direct measures of growth rates, sea turtles have characteristics that make them relatively poor candidates for mark-recapture studies. Sea turtles are relatively slow growing; consequently mark-recapture studies are long-term labor-intensive efforts. The probability of recapturing marked individuals is low in many populations because of the long-range movements and obscure migratory patterns in some lifestages (e.g. posthatchlings in a pelagic habitat), high natural mortality in young lifestages, and high human-induced mortality in juvenile and adult lifestages. Somatic growth function for immature loggerhead sea turtles, Caretta caretta, in southeastern U.S. waters