Environmental Drivers of Habitat Use by Hawksbill Turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) in the Arabian Gulf (Qatar)

作者：Christopher D. Marshall, Joshua A. Cullen, Mehsin Al-Ansi, Shafeeq Hamza, Mohamed A. Abdel-Moati · 发表于：Frontiers in Marine Science · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.3389/fmars.2020.549575 · 被引用次数：20 · 研究领域：Turtle Biology and Conservation、Wildlife Ecology and Conservation、Species Distribution and Climate Change

Climate change challenges life across all ecosystems. A majority of the increased thermal energy expected from climate change will be absorbed by the oceans, increasing sea surface temperature of the world’s oceans. Although, the impacts of climate change is more well-known for terrestrial ecosystems, there is growing evidence that climate change results in shifts in the range, abundance and phenology of marine species. Marine turtles are an interesting model system to investigate the impacts of climate change. As secondarily aquatic tetrapods they face numerous challenges in both terrestrial and marine habitats. Marine turtles in the hottest marine system in the world, the Arabian (Persian) Gulf, provide an unusual opportunity to investigate how climate change impacts the natural history of these ectotherms. The Arabian Gulf has become known as a living laboratory for climate change since SSTs can range up to 35°C, near the thermal physiological tolerance of most marine organisms. Bayesian switching state-space models of hawksbill turtle movement derived from satellite tags demonstrate that individuals seasonally moved to a 40-50 m isobath deep-water thermal refugia in the southeast Arabian Gulf seasonally when SST increased > 32°C. Generalized Additive Mixed Models demonstrate that SST was the primary driver of turtle movement, but depth (Z), sea surface height anomaly (SSHa) were also important factors. Furthermore, bathymetric rugosity was an important habitat characte...