Characterizing a Sea Turtle Developmental Habitat Using Landsat Observations of Surface-Pelagic Drift Communities in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico

IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing

Ernst Peebles¹  Robert F. Hardy¹  Blair Witherington²  Anne Meylan³  Leo Meirose³  Shigetomo Hirama³  Brian Lapointe⁴  Chuanmin Hu⁵ 

[1] College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, FL, USA;Disney's Animals Science and Environment, Lake Buena Vista, FL, 32830 USA;Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, St. Petersburg, FL, USA;Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, Florida Atlantic University, Ft. Pierce, FL, USA;Optical Oceanography Laboratory, University of South Florida, College of Marine Science, St. Petersburg, FL, USA;

关键词: Critical habitat;    developmental habitat;    Landsat;    remote sensing;    Sargassum;    sea turtle;   

DOI  :  10.1109/JSTARS.2018.2863194

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Compared with our understanding of most aspects of sea turtle biology, knowledge of the surface-pelagic juvenile life stages remains limited. Young North Atlantic cheloniids (hard-shelled sea turtles) are closely associated with surface-pelagic drift communities (SPDCs), which are dominated by macroalgae of the genus Sargassum. We quantified SPDCs in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, a region that hosts four species of cheloniids during their surface-pelagic juvenile stage. Landsat satellite imagery was used to identify and measure the areal coverage of SPDCs in the eastern Gulf during 2003-2011 (1323 images). Although the SPDC coverage varied annually, seasonally, and spatially, SPDCs were present year-round, with an estimated mean area of SPDC in each Landsat image of 4.9 km² (SD = 10.1). The area of SPDCs observed was inversely proportional to sea-surface wind velocity (Spearman's r = -0.33, p <; 0.001). The SPDC coverage was greatest during 2005, 2009, and 2011 and least during 2004 and 2010, but the 2010 analysis was affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which occurred within the study region. In the eastern Gulf, the area of SPDC peaked during June-August of each year. Although the SPDC coverage appeared lower in the eastern Gulf than in other regions of the Gulf and the North Atlantic, surface-pelagic juvenile green, hawksbill, Kemp's ridley, and loggerhead turtles were found to be using this habitat, suggesting that eastern Gulf SPDCs provide developmental habitats that are critical to the recovery of four sea turtle species.

【 授权许可】

Unknown