IFREMER/Kélonia satellite tracked late juvenile loggerhead sea turtles from Réunion Island 2008-2012

Institut Français pour L'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER) and Kélonia

A satellite tracking study was conducted on juvenile loggerhead sea turtles in the Indian Ocean. Eighteen individuals were fitted with transponders and tracked from Réunion Island (21.2°S, 55.3°E) in order to investigate movements and diving patterns. Nine turtles swam north towards Oman (20.5°N, 58.8°E), where one of the world’s largest rookeries of loggerheads is located. Three individuals travelled south towards South-Africa and Madagascar, countries that also host loggerhead nesting grounds. Fourteen of the transmitters relayed diving profiles. A dichotomy between diurnal and nocturnal diving behavior was observed. A greater number of shorter dives occurred during the day. Diving behavior also differed according to movement behavior as individuals spent more time in subsurface waters (<10 m) during transit phases. The study provides an improved understanding of the oceanic movements and diving behavior of juvenile loggerheads. The results address a significant gap in the understanding of loggerhead oceanic movements and may help with the conservation of the species.

The purpose was to study the movement and diving behavior of late juvenile loggerheads in the western Indian Ocean.

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Overview

This section explains attributes included in the original dataset. OBIS-SEAMAP restricts the attributes available to the public to date/time, lat/lon and species names/counts only. Should you need other attributes described here, you are encouraged to contact the data provider.

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
Only minimum required attributes are visible and downloadable online. Other attributes may be obtained upon provider's permission.

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)	Description
oid	Unique ID (created by OBIS-SEAMAP)
latitude	Latitude (decimal degrees)
longitude	Longitude (decimal degrees)
tag_id	Tag ID
obs_date	Date of observation
date_time	Date and time of observation
obs_time	Time of observation
time_zone	Time zone of the obs_time values (always UTC)
notes
obs_count	Number of animals sighted (1)
age_class	Juvenile
sp_tsn	Species ITIS TSN
lc	Location class
sp_code	Species code
sp_obs	Species observed
common	Common name of animal
provider	Data provider
owner	Data owner
beach	Beach of tagging location
country	Country of tagging location
cite1	Citation
geom