Cold Stunned Sea Turtle Diet Analysis in Cape Cod Bay from 2015-2020
Lucy McWilliams is a senoir at Pawling High School who is a diligent student who has enrolled and excelled in most honors-level and AP courses offered. Additionally, she is a three season athlete and works very hard to balance her academics on top of athletics. In the fall and winter, she is captain of Pawling High School’s varsity dance team. Lucy began playing lacrosse in second grade and coaches Pawling’s Kindergarten- Second grade lacrosse team with her dad. She is a member of the French National Honor Society, National Honor Society, Math National Honor Society, and Science National Honor Society where she helps tutor younger students, participates in various fundraisers, and volunteers her time for the benefit of her community. She is also a member of Pawling High School’s Health and wellness committee where she helps promote a healthy lifestyle for families throughout her community.
Lucy’s passion for Marine Biology began at a young age while spending her summers on the Long Island Sound where she discovered her love for the ocean. Through reading various peer reviewed journal articles, she realized that she wanted to research Sea Turtles. She was specifically interested in their migration patterns, diet, habitat, trophic position, and foraging ecology which can be researched using the Stable Isotope Analysis method. Lucy is using the stable isotope analysis to analyze multiple tissue samples of green, loggerhead, and kemp’s ridley sea turtles at the northern extent of their migration in the Western North Atlantic Ocean.
Abstract
As water temperatures drop in November, Kemp’s Ridley, Loggerhead, and Green sea turtles cold-stun in Cape Cod Bay. The foraging ecology of these sea turtles remains an understudied area of research. In this study, we aim to assess the diet of these turtles using a multi-tissue stable isotope analysis of cold-stunned kemp’s ridley, loggerhead, and green sea turtles stranded from 2015 to 2020. Stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen were measured in blood, front and rear flipper, liver, muscle, skin, and scute tissue samples. We predict an elevated level of Nitrogen isotope ratios in kemp’s ridley and loggerhead turtles compared to green turtles due to the carnivorous loggerheads and kemp ridleys’ carnivorous diet and the greens herbivorous diet. We anticipate empty stomachs due to starvation while stranded, and a variety of foraging strategies, migration patterns, and trophic positions between these species. Data collected from this study will add to the knowledge of these turtles’ prey species and aid managers in the preservation of these species as a mitigation strategy for these turtles' extinction.
Marjot Foundation
In the Spring of 2021, I was awarded the Marjot Scholar's Program Research Grant. This award has generously provided funding to this project so we can continue this research and expand upon our methods. I will be conducting additional sulfur isotope analyses on some of these samples to test whether turtles are feeding more in estuaries or coastal waters in MA. I will also prepare additional samples of turtle shell scute material for carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis. Scutes record information over the turtles’ lifespan and so can be used to get both recent and earlier life history information Stomach contents will be visually identified using a dissecting microscope. These results will be used to identify isotopic signatures of prey species and statistically analyzed for significance.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my mentor, Dr. John Logan (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Division of Marine Fisheries), and the rest of the research team, Dr. Karen Dourdeville, Dr. Bob Prescott, Dr. Samir Patel, and Dr. Heather Hass, for guiding my research. My Science Research Teacher, Mrs. Gillian Rinaldo for supporting my project and giving me advice and feedback on the direction of my project, Cayla Gona for helping me carry out my methods, my friends, family, and Science Research peers for all the support
