Current Search: info:fedora/islandora:personCModel (x) » info:fedora/fau:collegeofengineering (x) » Graduate College (x) » Salmon, Michael (x) » Prio, Joseph D. (x)
-
-
Title
-
What Controls The Nocturnal Emergence Rhythm Of Hatchling Marine Turtles?.
-
Creator
-
Prio, Joseph D., Salmon, Michael, Graduate College
-
Abstract/Description
-
Most marine organisms partition particular activities, such as growth, migration, reproduction, and hatching, to particular seasons, times of the day or night, or phases of the lunar cycle. The result is characterized as a “rhythm”. Scientists who study these rhythms generally ask two kinds of questions: why do they occur when they do that is, what is their survival value, and how are they controlled, physiologically? Hatchling marine turtles almost always emerge from their nests at night,...
Show moreMost marine organisms partition particular activities, such as growth, migration, reproduction, and hatching, to particular seasons, times of the day or night, or phases of the lunar cycle. The result is characterized as a “rhythm”. Scientists who study these rhythms generally ask two kinds of questions: why do they occur when they do that is, what is their survival value, and how are they controlled, physiologically? Hatchling marine turtles almost always emerge from their nests at night, then crawl down the beach to the sea and migrate offshore. By doing so at night they avoid lethally warm beach sands and diurnally active predators in the shallows. But these “survival value” explanations do not account for how the turtles, digging their way upward inside the nest toward the beach surface, know that it’s dark and time to emerge. The classic explanation for how they “know” is based upon surface sand temperatures. During the day, these sands can be very warm 50° C. When hatchlings digging upward encounter these heated sands, they stop digging until the sand cools, after sunset. But these observations fail to explain why in most studies, hatchlings rarely emerge from their nests at dawn or in the early morning, when the sand is still cool. To account for those observations, we hypothesize that the turtles must also possess a time sense that inhibits emergence during inappropriate times, such as shortly before or after sunrise.
Show less
-
Date Issued
-
2015
-
PURL
-
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00005909
-
Format
-
Document (PDF)
