The size of female sea turtles has a bearing on population dynamics and therefore they should be protected, a University of Western Australia (UWA) study has found.
The finding, published in Global Ecology and Biogeography on April 19, showed that larger females have greater reproductive output, with size a strong predictor of egg quantities, as well as the size of hatchlings when born.
“Females as they grow older, become what you could call ‘super mums’, contributing more to the population by having more eggs and of a greater size,” said Dr. Diego Barneche, an adjunct senior researcher with UWA’s Oceans Institute and Ecological Statistician at the Australian Institute of Marine Science.
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