Abstract
The Kemp's ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) is the most endangered sea turtle species in the world, largely due to the limited geographic range of its nesting habitat. There has been limited research regarding the connection between beach geomorphology and Kemp's ridley nesting patterns, but studies concerning other sea turtle species suggest that certain beach geomorphology variables, such as beach slope and width, influence nest site selection. This research attempts to address the literature gap by quantifying the terrestrial habitat variability of the Kemp's ridley and investigating the connection between beach geomorphology characteristics and Kemp's ridley nesting preferences on Padre Island, Texas, USA. Geomorphology characteristics, such as beach width and slope, were extracted from lidar-derived digital elevation models and associated with Kemp's nest coordinates and pseudo-absence points randomly created within the study area. Generalized linear models and random forest models were used to assess the significance of variables for nesting preferences. Kemp's ridley nest presence was successfully modeled using beach geomorphology characteristics, and elevation, distance from shoreline, maximum dune slope, and average beach slope were the relatively most important variables in the models. Kemp's ridleys exhibit a preference for a limited range of the study area and avoid nesting on beaches with beach characteristics of extreme values. The results of this study include new information regarding Kemp's ridley terrestrial habitat and nesting preferences that have many applications for species conservation and management.
Highlights
The range of the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle encompasses the Gulf of Mexico and extends into the northwestern Atlantic Ocean (Putman et al, 2013)
This study found that each sea turtle species exhibited a tolerance for beaches with a wide range of measured geomorphology variables but would not nest on beaches outside of this tolerance (Yamamoto et al, 2012)
Boxplots of each geomorphology characteristic differentiated by nest presence contrast the range of geomorphology values used by the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle with the total range of available nesting area (Supplementary Figures 1–7)
Summary
The range of the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle encompasses the Gulf of Mexico and extends into the northwestern Atlantic Ocean (Putman et al, 2013). The overall goal of this project was to create a secondary nesting colony in a location that was both protected and within the native range of the species (Shaver and Rubio, 2008). Due to these and other efforts, both Rancho Nuevo and Padre Island National Seashore serve as main nesting sites for the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle today, in Mexico and the United States, respectively (Caillouet et al, 2015).
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