Mother- hatchling Isotopic Relationship in Green Turtle

The present study was conducted at three major green turtle nesting beaches (Sugözü, Akyatan and Samandağ) on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. Significant relationships were identified between hatchlings and their mothers in terms of δ13C. Moreover, the conditional probabilities of predicting the mother's isotopic niche size are 85.16% and 92.88% at alpha levels of 0.95 and 0.99, respectively, given knowledge of the hatchling isotopic niche size. In addition to demonstrating a linear relationship between hatchlings and the single isotopic composition of their mothers, this study provides a new perspective on the mother-hatchling relationship of green turtles in the eastern Mediterranean by proposing a concept of niche overlap using two isotopes. This is the first hypothesis to be made for the Mediterranean population of the green turtle, and the results are important their feeding ecologies and estimate to their feeding areas.

The relationships of the mother and hatchling δ13C and δ15N epidermis values for eastern Mediterranean green turtles.

Read the full article, published by Zoological Studies, here

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