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Nesting Ecology of Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys Olivacea) Turtles on Arribada Nesting Beaches

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Nesting Ecology of Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys Olivacea) Turtles on Arribada Nesting Beaches Nesting Ecology of Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) Turtles on Arribada Nesting Beaches A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Drexel University by Shaya Honarvar in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2007 ©Copyright 2007 Shaya Honarvar. All Rights Reserved i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to thank my family, especially my mother Shila and my brothers Ashkan and Sina, for all their support and love that they have provided me. Thank you for pushing me to go to the USA for finishing up my MS, even though originally it was only for 9 months and not 7 years. Thanks to Dieter Schifferli for teaching me how to think like a scientist and Micah Brodsky, for believing in me and supporting me through my graduate years. I am also indebted to Marion and Curtis Brodsky. They have treated me as their daughter and have been my second family. Without them I would not have reached this point. Of course, I thank my best friends Siona, Gauri, Matt and Laura for putting up with me when I could not talk about anything else except turtles. They probably know as much about turtles as I do at this point. Also thanks to Wasila, Vlademir, Raul and Tsan for their love and support. Thanks to Jack for listening to all my density-dependent and oxygen stories including the G2 hypothesis…and forcing me to take a walk around the block when I could not think straight anymore. Thanks to Lorna super MAGNUS for helping me get through the last couple of weeks. It must have been hard to live with me! I thank my colleagues and friends within the department of Bioscience and Biotechnology, especially Annette for all the fun and discussions we had; Eugenia for the good times, good food and providing a roof on top of my head when I needed one. Bibi and Gabi for the fun time during my stay at Playa Grande; and Bryan Wallace for his help dealing with Qubit system. ii I am grateful to Roger Blanco Segura, Yorlan Diaz Chavarria, Emily Davis, Luis Gabriel Fonseca Lopez, Grettel Murillo Quiros, Luis Araya Sanchez and may others for helping me in the field. Thanks to Elyzabeth Velez and Rotney for all their help and support during preparation for a new field season. I will never forget Dr. van den Berghe for all his help and support during my two year stay in Nicaragua. Especially when he was bringing me cheese puffs and tangerines while I was in the field stuck with rice and beans. I am very grateful to my advisor Dr. James Spotila for the years of expert career guidance. He has been a great mentor, friend, and father-figure. Thanks to Dr. Mike O’Connor for keeping me sane and taking the time to help me improve my statistical analysis skills. I would like to thank the members of my committee, Dr. Susan Kilham, Dr. Jeremy Lee, Dr. Arthur Dunham, Dr. Pamela Plotkin, Dr. Harold Avery for all their support and guidance over the years. This research was funded by Betz Chair of Environmental Science at Drexel University, Koinonia Foundation, The Leatherback Trust, Lerner-Grey grant for marine research from American Museum of Natural History and Linnaeus Fund and Chelonian Research Foundation and private funds. Approvals were provided by MINAE in Costa Rica, MARENA and Fundacion Cocibolca in Nicaragua and Drexel University IACUC. A special thank you to Thomas Elzey for his support of my project. Finally I would like to thank anyone and everyone else who has helped me on this journey. I am sorry that your name is not mentioned here. That would be due to my inability to type any more words….. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ………………………………………………………………………..v LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………………………………...vi ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………………viii 1. CHAPTER 1: General Introduction …………………………………………...……….1 2. CHAPTER 2: Density-dependent effects on hatching success of the olive ridley turtle, Lepidochelys olivacea…………………………………………...5 Introduction ……………………………………………………………….………5 Methods …………………………………………………………………………..8 Results …………………………………………………………………………...14 Discussion ……………………………………………………………………….17 3. CHAPTER 3: Impact of egg harvest on the olive ridley, Lepidochelys olivacea, population at Playa La Flor, Nicaragua ………………………………………………29 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………...29 Methods ………………………………………………………………………….32 Results …………………………………………………………………………...36 Discussion ……………………………………………………………………….37 4. CHAPTER 4: Microbial community structure in sand on two olive ridley arribada nesting beaches, Playa La Flor, Nicaragua and Playa Nancite, Costa Rica …………………………………………………………………………….46 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………..46 Methods …………………………………………………………………………49 Results …………………………………………………………………………..55 iv Discussion ………………………………………………………………….……58 5. CHAPTER 5: General conclusions, implications for conservation and management …………………………………………………………………...………...75 LIST OF REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………..77 VITA …………………………………………………………………………………….89 v LIST OF TABLES 1. Number and duration of arribadas at Playa La Flor, 1998-2006 (* 2005 data is not available, 2006 data was not included in the data analysis). ….………….…43 2. Direct counts for number of nests, destroyed nests and hatchling production are presented here. Percentage poaching and hatching success data are the estimated least squares means from the SAS output. * Data from the August arribada is not included in any analysis due to high poaching rate……………………………...44 3. Sampling sites, beach zones and nest densities. The numbers represent the number of samples/subsamples……………………………………………………….…..62 4. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) of scores of the first 10 components from PCA in relation to samples, zones of the beach and nest density for both Playa Nancite and Playa La Flor (α = 0.05). Wilks’ Lamda, Hotelling- Lawley Trace and Roy’s Greatest Root tests showed significance (data not shown here)………………………………………………………………………...……63 5. Abundance, richness, Shannon-Weiner diversity index (H), Evenness, Simpson’s diversity index (D) are all given for different nest densities and zones at Playa Nancite, Costa Rica……………………………………………………….……...64 6. Abundance, richness, Shannon-Weiner diversity index (H), Evenness, Simpson’s diversity index (D) are all given for different nest densities and Zones at Playa La Flor, Nicaragua…………………………………………………………………..65 7. Two-way analysis of variance for phylotype diversity using Shannon-Weiner and Simpson’s diversity index at Playa Nancite and Playa La Flor…………….……66 8. Two-way multivariate analysis of phylotype abundance and richness in relation to zone on the beach and nest density for Playa Nancite and one-way multivariate analysis of phylotype abundance and richness in relation to samples, zone on the beach and nest density for Playa La Flor……………………………………...…67 9. Two-way analysis of variance for phylotype richness and abundance at Playa Nancite and Playa La Flor…………………………………………………..……68 vi LIST OF FIGURES 1. Hatching success (mean ± CI) measured in different experimental density treatment plots at Playa Nancite, Costa Rica. Hatching success in high density treatment plots was significantly lower compared to moderate and low density plots indicated by different lowercase letters…………………………………….24 2. Oxygen and CO2 in nests and in sand (mean ± SE) during incubation at Playa Nancite. Oxygen in nests (a) in sand (c). Carbon dioxide levels in nests (b) and in sand (d) in different density treatment plots (Squares = beach, triangles = high density, circles = moderate density, diamond = low density) shown in the graph along with control plots (X = control) which contained no nests………………..25 3. Temperatures in nests and in sand (mean ± SE) during incubation at Playa Nancite. Temperature in nests (a) and in sand (b) in different density treatment plots (Squares = beach, triangles = high density, circles = moderate density, diamond = low density) are shown in the graph along with control plots (X = control) which contained no nests……………………………………………….26 4. Simulated nest densities from one arribada on the nesting beach at 2005 levels of nesting. Playa La Flor (a) and Playa Nancite (b). Color scale of densities is given as a log scale……………………………………………………………………..27 5. Simulated frequency of number of nests/m2 at Playa Nancite and Playa La Flor. Relative frequency of number of nests/m2 for one arribada and for the entire season at Playa Nancite (dashed line), Relative frequency of number of nests/m2 for one arribada at Playa La Flor (solid line) and for the entire nesting season at Playa La Flor (dotted line)……………………………………………………….28 6. Olive ridley population trend from 1998 to 2006 at Playa La Flor……………...45 7. Score plot from PCA of TRF profiles from Playa Nancite. High nest density, High on the beach (square=HH); High nest density, Middle on the beach (triangle=HM); High nest density, Low on the beach (cross=HL); Moderate nest density, High on the beach (X=MH); Moderate nest density, Middle on the beach (circle=MM); Moderate nest density, Low on the beach (star=ML) and Control (diamond =CC)…………………………………………………………………..69 8. Score plot from PCA of TRF profiles from Playa La Flor. High nest density, High on the beach (square=LFHH); High nest density, Middle on the beach (triangle=LFHM); High nest density, Low on the beach (cross=LFHL); Low nest density, High on the beach (X=LFLH); Low nest density, Low on the beach (star=LFLL)……………………………………………………………………...70 vii 9. Dendogram of TRF profile from all sand samples using data generated from PCA including all phylotypes. The dendograms were generated using euclidean distance values, using
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