The stomach contents of post-hatchling green and loggerhead sea turtles in the southwest Pacific: an insight into habitat association
The stomach contents of post-hatchling green and loggerhead sea turtles in the southwest Pacific: an insight into habitat association
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DOI：
10.1007/s00227-008-1022-z
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发表时间：
2008-08-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.4
通讯作者：
Limpus, C. J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Boyle, M. C.;Limpus, C. J.
从胃内容物中获得的饮食信息可以为动物的生态提供丰富的信息。对于那些隐秘的动物，比如海龟孵化后的生活史阶段，饮食分析所能提供的生态洞察力可能是无法获得的。对海龟孵化后胃内容物的调查发现了浮游生物，主要是远洋软体动物和甲壳类动物、水螅类动物、马尾藻和鱼卵。这些饮食生物的性质为一个被广泛接受的假设提供了证据，即除了平背龟（Natator depressus）外，海龟的孵化后的生活史阶段是远洋和海洋。由于大多数调查海龟孵化后胃内容物的研究都是在北大西洋和太平洋的红海龟（Caretta Caretta）上进行的，因此对孵化后生态学的饮食调查得出的见解是有偏见的。本研究调查了西南太平洋绿海龟（Chelonia mydas）和红海龟孵化后的饮食。胃内容物来自55只被搁浅或被河马吞噬的绿蠵龟和红蠵龟。我们的研究结果表明，西南太平洋的红海龟和绿海龟的孵化后具有相似的摄食生态，并以各种表明海洋和远洋存在的神经物质为食。两种被调查物种所食用的食物种类与以往研究中发现的分类类群相似，但由于地理位置不同而出现物种水平的差异。
Dietary information obtained from stomach contents can provide a wealth of information on an animal's ecology. Where animals are cryptic, such as the post-hatchling life history stage of a sea turtle, the ecological insight that dietary analyses can provide, may be otherwise unobtainable. Investigations into post-hatchling turtle stomach contents have found planktonic organisms, dominated by pelagic molluscs and crustaceans, hydrozoans, Sargassum and fish eggs. The nature of these dietary organisms provides evidence for the widely accepted hypothesis that, with the exception of the flatback turtle (Natator depressus), the post-hatchling stage of a sea turtle's life history is pelagic and oceanic. As the majority of studies that have investigated the stomach contents of post-hatchling sea turtles have been conducted on loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) in the northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, insight derived from dietary investigations into post-hatchling ecology is biased. This study investigates the diet of post-hatchling green turtles (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead turtles in the southwest Pacific Ocean. Stomach contents were obtained from 55 green and loggerhead post-hatchling turtles that had stranded or been consumed by Coryphaena hippurus. Our findings demonstrate that loggerhead and green post-hatchlings in the southwest Pacific share similar feeding ecology and feed on a variety of neustonic items that are indicative of an oceanic and pelagic existence. The dietary items consumed by both species investigated belong to similar taxonomic groups as those found in previous studies with species level distinctions occurring owing to the different geographical location.