Abstract
Ingestion of artificial debris is considered as a significant stress for wildlife including sea turtles. To investigate how turtles react to artificial debris under natural conditions, we deployed animal-borne video cameras on loggerhead and green turtles in addition to feces and gut contents analyses from 2007 to 2015. Frequency of occurrences of artificial debris in feces and gut contents collected from loggerhead turtles were 35.7% (10/28) and 84.6% (11/13), respectively. Artificial debris appeared in all green turtles in feces (25/25) and gut contents (10/10), and green turtles ingested more debris (feces; 15.8 ± 33.4 g, gut; 39.8 ± 51.2 g) than loggerhead turtles (feces; 1.6 ± 3.7 g, gut; 9.7 ± 15.0 g). In the video records (60 and 52.5 hours from 10 loggerhead and 6 green turtles, respectively), turtles encountered 46 artificial debris and ingested 23 of them. The encounter-ingestion ratio of artificial debris in green turtles (61.8%) was significantly higher than that in loggerhead turtles (16.7%). Loggerhead turtles frequently fed on gelatinous prey (78/84), however, green turtles mainly fed marine algae (156/210), and partly consumed gelatinous prey (10/210). Turtles seemed to confuse solo drifting debris with their diet, and omnivorous green turtles were more attracted by artificial debris.
Highlights
Ingestion of artificial debris is considered as a significant stress for wildlife including sea turtles
Previous studies using animal-borne video cameras have focused on foraging ecology, it is suitable for studying how animals react to artificial debris encountered under natural conditions
In %mass (equation (2)), Echinoidea, Maxillopoda and Gastropoda were dominant for loggerhead turtles, and Phaeophyceae and artificial debris were dominant for green turtles (Table 1)
Summary
Ingestion of artificial debris is considered as a significant stress for wildlife including sea turtles. To investigate how turtles react to artificial debris under natural conditions, we deployed animal-borne video cameras on loggerhead and green turtles in addition to feces and gut contents analyses from 2007 to 2015. In the video records (60 and 52.5 hours from 10 loggerhead and 6 green turtles, respectively), turtles encountered 46 artificial debris and ingested 23 of them. Schuyler et al.[19] reported that the herbivore species (green turtle) may be more likely to ingest debris than carnivorous species (loggerhead turtle) This could be because the herbivore species is more likely to eat artificial debris due to its similarity to their diets. Investigating responses of turtles when they encounter artificial debris under natural conditions is important for understanding debris ingestion by sea turtles. Using animal-borne video cameras, we can investigate the responses of turtles when they encounter artificial debris and compare to encounter-ingestion ratios of artificial debris between species
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