Intra-annual Loggerhead and Green Turtle Spatial Nesting Patterns

Abstract

We analyzed a 15-year (1989–2003) dataset of spatial nesting locations for Loggerhead and Green Turtles along a 40.5-km stretch of beach encompassing the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge along the Atlantic coast of Florida. To assess whether there are differences in spatial distribution influenced by temporal site-selection cues, we divided each season into quartiles and analyzed the autocorrelative patterns of the nest distributions within each time frame. Fundamentally, intraspecific differences in nest spatial patterns from the beginning to the end of the nesting season were minor. Though the temporal grain of the analyses may not be able to discern affects of fine-scale fluctuations (e.g., high- and low-tide events), these results suggest that environmental variables that change over the nesting season (e.g., ocean temperatures, daylength, and existing human activities) are not significantly influencing where these sea turtles place their nests.