Spatial and temporal dimensions of the critical habitat selection processes by sea turtles

Abstract

Marine turtles are large vertebrates with a complex life cycle along which they occupy several habitats in their different stages. This complexity imposes challenges for the study and knowledge of their populations, and for decades numerous studies have targeted to understand the factors that determine the selection and use of the resources they require at their different stages. The inclusion of the spatial and temporal scales in the conception of the research efforts is of the highest transcendence to obtain robust and pertinent information about the habitat selection processes. The objective of this revision was to analyze different scales and approaches used to evaluate the selection processes of nesting beaches, nesting sites and feeding habitats by sea turtles, considering some of the biological, ecological and evolutive implications linked to these processes. Based on the available literature, some of the reported results are analyzed in terms of their implications for conservation and management of their populations and the critical habitats they occupy. The study of the processes involved in the selection and use of the critical habitats that sea turtles occupy is nowadays an active, pertinent and of highest relevance; fact that reassert the strategic and fundamental importance of long time monitoring studies, as the only way to evaluate in a convincing way alterations of their populations and habitats at different spatial and temporal scales.