Abstract
Feeding strategies in sea turtles are among the most important aspects of their life history, influencing demographic parameters such as growth, age-at-maturity, and reproductive migrations. However, studying sea turtle diet is often challenging and knowledge about foraging ecology is lacking for most populations worldwide. We studied green turtles (Chelonia mydas) at two disparate sites in Peru: La Aguada (~ 14°S), an area with upwelling conditions, and Virrila Estuary (~ 5°S) with year-round warm conditions. We conducted (1) in-water capture to assess population size structure and (2) esophageal lavages to recover diet components from turtles at both sites. Diet composition and feeding strategy were evaluated using several analytical approaches, and environmental influence on diet was assessed in relation to the Peruvian Oscillation Index. Our results indicate substantially different life stages and diets at the two study sites. Green turtles at La Aguada were mostly juveniles consuming animal matter, whereas turtles at Virrila Estuary were mainly sub-adults with a diet dominated by vegetal matter. Our results suggest a life-history-based habitat use model for green turtles in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. We propose that juvenile green turtles initially recruit to more southern neritic habitats of Peru, feed on high-caloric animal matter, then as individuals grow, they transition northwards to feed on lower-caloric, but abundant, vegetal matter. Our data provide a framework for ontogenic-based developmental migrations by green turtles in this portion of the southeastern Pacific Ocean, helping policymakers on the need to implement management strategies.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available, because the intellectual property of all raw data belongs to the government of Peru, specifically the Instituto del Mar del Peru (IMARPE), which belongs to the Ministry of Production; but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Vanessa Bachmann, Sixto Quispe, Jennifer Chauca, Massiel Manrique Peralta and Luis Mayaute Falconi for all their wonderful help with fieldwork, reports, data analysis and esophageal lavages. We also thank Rómulo Juárez and sons for their constant support for the capture of sea turtles in the Virrila Estuary. Special thanks to Josymar Torrejon for his support in the preparation of the figures. Finally, we are very grateful to Nelly de Paz Campos for teaching us the technique of esophageal lavage on sea turtles.
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All the field surveys, the equipment used, the transport to the evaluation areas and the logistics were financed 100% by the Peruvian Marine Research Institute (IMARPE) through the institutional work plan of the Oficina de Investigaciones en Depredadores Superiores (OIDS).
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JQ and EP conceived and designed the experiments and performed the surveys on the field; JQ and EP analyzed the data and prepared figures and tables; JQ, EP and JS wrote a first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed equally to and approved the final version of manuscript.
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Research permits were provided by Servicio Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidas (SERFOR) (National Service for Natural Protected Areas) for conducting sea turtle surveys in La Aguada (N208-2013-SERNANPRNP/ J, N105-2013- SERNANP-RNP/J, N087-2011- SERNANP-RNP/J). Research in the Virrila Estuary were permitted by SERFOR (N° 130–2016 – SERFOR/DGGSPFFS); before 2015 we worked under local permission issued by the Sechura municipality.
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Quiñones, J., Paredes-Coral, E. & Seminoff, J.A. Foraging ecology of green turtles (Chelonia mydas) in Peru: relationships with ontogeny and environmental variability. Mar Biol 169, 139 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-022-04126-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-022-04126-8