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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