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Behavioral Ecology Advance Access published online on December 18, 2007
Behavioral Ecology, doi:10.1093/beheco/arm104
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Migration cues and timing in leatherback sea turtles

Scott A. Sherrill-Mix, Michael C. James and Ransom A. Myers*

Department of Biological Sciences, Dalhousie University, 1355 Oxford Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 4J1

Address correspondence to S.A. Sherrill-Mix. E-mail: sherrill{at}mathstat.dal.ca.


  Abstract

Atlantic leatherback sea turtles migrate annually from foraging grounds off eastern Canada and the northeastern United States to southern foraging and breeding areas. Using Cox's proportional hazards model, we investigated the individual timing of the southward migrations of 27 turtles equipped with satellite-linked transmitters off Nova Scotia compared with turtle characteristics and satellite-measured ocean variables. Latitude, longitude, 1-week lagged average sea surface temperature, and 1-week lagged average chlorophyll-a concentration appear to influence the probability of departure. Higher temperature and, in the northern range of the study, higher chlorophyll concentration increased departure rates, perhaps due to the acceleration of the life cycle of the leatherback's gelatinous prey and/or increased feeding efficiency in these areas. This study highlights the opportunity to use satellite telemetry and environmental data to examine the cues for and timing of animal migrations and expands the study of migration timing to include a new species and environment.

Key words: Dermochelys coriacea, migration cues, modeling, oceanographic variables, satellite telemetry.

* Deceased.

Received 30 June 2007; revised 25 September 2007; accepted 26 September 2007.


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