Sea Turtle Nesting: What Is Known and What Are the Challenges under a Changing Climate Scenario

Raquel A. M. São Miguel, Rita Anastácio, Mário J. Pereira
2022 Open Journal of Ecology  
The rate of climate change experienced globally in recent decades may compromise sea turtles' survival; especially temperature increase, which is particularly fast, impacts life history characteristics, such as temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD), late maturity and sea turtles highly migratory nature. This review aims to identify and summarize the information that has been collected from 2009-2020 in order to aid future empirical studies that seek to fill these and other knowledge
more » ... , and subsequently assist conservationists in making multilevel decisions to protect sea turtle populations and species. In a summarized way the general knowledge acquired so far on the influence of environmental abiotic and biotic factors on nesting behaviour and hatching, emergence and survival successes of sea turtle hatchlings, was gathered. To accomplish this work, a search on Web of Science, Science Direct, NCBI/PubMed, and Google Scholar was carried out using the terms "sea turtles + climate change". Published articles in the period 2009-2020 were selected, related to the nesting ecology of 5 species of sea turtles: Caretta caretta, Eretmochelys imbricata, Dermochelys coriacea, Chelonia mydas, Lepidochelys olivacea. Emphasis was also placed on geographical information and on How to cite this paper:
doi:10.4236/oje.2022.121001 fatcat:vhlcnvuimvagxggnslyx2b5hfq