Florida State University thinks climate change could bring short-term gain, long-term pain for loggerhead sea turtles
New research from conservation biologists at Florida State University and their collaborators suggests that while some loggerheads will suffer from the effects of a changing climate, populations in certain nesting areas could stand to reap important short-term benefits from the shifting environmental conditions.
In an investigation of 17 loggerhead turtle nesting beaches along the coast of Brazil, scientists found that hatchling production —the rate of successful hatching and emergence of hatchling turtles — could receive a boost in temperate areas forecasted to warm under climate change. But those improvements could be relatively short lived.
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Photo from Florida State University.