Will the largest green sea turtle colony in the Eastern Atlantic survive to climate change?
The MSc thesis of Ana Marques (class of 13/14) provided some of the most important results of a paper that was recently published in Marine Ecology Progress series.
The sex of sea turtle juveniles is determined by incubation temperature. Ana Marques worked on the Marine National Park of João Vieira- Poilão, Guinea-Bissau, in the island with the largest nesting colony of the green sea turtle in the Eastern Atlantic. Her work contributed to show that the selection of different nesting sites (exposed or protected from the sun) by the nesting adult females results in the production of balanced sex-ratios, even under a warming climate.