Collaborative Research: The diving physiology of Chelonians: A comparative study of three turtle species

该项目调查海龟的潜水生理，以评估这些爬行动物适应气候变化和污染威胁增加的能力，并了解渔业活动中海龟副渔获物的高死亡率。 海龟与其他潜水员（如海洋哺乳动物）的不同之处在于，它们主要将氧气储存在肺部，此外，还有一个三腔心脏，其中一个心室选择性地将血液主要分流到肺部或身体。 海龟也能在长时间的休眠期中存活下来，在此期间，血液中没有氧气，充满了高浓度的乳酸。 由于对缺氧的耐受性，目前还不清楚为什么海龟在短时间内被网缠住会有如此高的死亡率。独立的生理数据记录器将被应用于一种淡水海龟和两种海龟，以记录在各种条件下（包括不受干扰的自发潜水和网缠住）的心率、血氧消耗和血乳酸浓度。 由于对肺氧的依赖性，假设a）在潜水期间心率不会降低，B）在潜水期间血氧消耗的速率将与心率相关，c）心脏分流的幅度和程度将在不同的潜水条件下变化，以及d）与大多数潜水相反，由于挣扎，在网缠绕期间将出现高乳酸水平。该项目由斯克里普斯海洋学研究所、加州尔湾大学和东京大学（海龟研究）合作进行。 该项目的更广泛的影响包括博士后研究员，研究生和本科生的培训，美国高中生的外展计划，东京大学潜水生理学课程的教学，以及未来可应用于其他潜水和运动生理学研究的血乳酸传感器/记录仪的开发。

This project investigates the diving physiology of turtles in order to assess the ability of these reptiles to adapt to increased threats of climate change and pollution, and to understand the high mortality from by-catch of marine turtles during fisheries activities. Turtles differ from other divers such as marine mammals in that they primarily store oxygen in their lungs and, in addition, have a three-chambered heart, in which a single ventricle selectively shunts blood primarily to either the lungs or the body. Turtles also survive long dormant periods, during which the blood is devoid of oxygen and filled with high concentrations of lactic acid. With this tolerance for lack of oxygen, it is unclear why there is such high mortality of marine turtles during short periods of net entanglement.Self-contained physiological data loggers will be applied to one species of freshwater turtle and two species of marine turtles in order to document heart rate, blood oxygen depletion, and blood lactate concentrations during a variety of conditions including undisturbed spontaneous dives and net entanglement. Because of the dependency on lung oxygen, it is hypothesized that a) heart rate will not decrease during dives, b) the rate of blood oxygen depletion will correlate with heart rate during dives, c) that the magnitude and degree of cardiac shunting will vary under different diving conditions, and d), in contrast to most dives, high lactate levels will occur during net entanglement due to struggling. This project features collaboration of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of California Irvine and the University of Tokyo (marine turtle studies). Broader impacts of the project include training of the post-doctoral fellow, graduate students, and undergraduates, outreach programs to high school students in the United States, teaching of a class in diving physiology at the University of Tokyo, and the development of a blood lactate sensor/recorder that can be applied to other diving and exercise physiology studies in the future.