Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T17:10:01.969Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Assessing tag loss and survival probabilities in green turtles (Chelonia mydas) nesting in Malaysia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2017

Hideaki Nishizawa ,
Juanita Joseph Open the ORCID record for Juanita Joseph [Opens in a new window] ,
Vicki Yii-Ching Chew ,
Hock-Chark Liew  and
Eng-Heng Chan
Hideaki Nishizawa
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University, Yoshida Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan
Juanita Joseph*
Affiliation:
Institute of Oceanography and Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia
Vicki Yii-Ching Chew
Affiliation:
Institute of Oceanography and Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia
Hock-Chark Liew
Affiliation:
Institute of Oceanography and Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia
Eng-Heng Chan
Affiliation:
Turtle Conservation Society of Malaysia, 20300 Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: J. Joseph, Institute of Oceanography and Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. email: juanita@umt.edu.my
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The loss of external tags is one of the biggest problems in mark-recapture research. An evaluation of tag loss is therefore required to improve tagging methodology, select appropriate tag types, and accurately estimate population status and dynamics. We estimated tag loss probability of double-tagged green turtles (Chelonia mydas) nesting at Redang Island, Malaysia (05°49′ N 103°00′ E), from 1993–2014. For both titanium and Inconel tags, we found a tag loss pattern with a high initial tag loss rate that decreased to an asymptote near a constant value above zero. The initial tag loss probability for titanium tags was higher than for Inconel tags, and titanium tags were lost earlier than Inconel tags in more individuals when both types of tags were attached. In addition, comparison of the tag loss probability of Inconel tags attached during the period when tagging staff changed every year to that when senior tagging staff were not changed, indicated that lack of consistency in tagging staff affected the application of at least one of two Inconel tags. Estimated tag loss probability was incorporated into a recapture model, and annual survival probability was estimated to be 0.893 (95% confidence interval: 0.857–0.921).

Keywords

sea turtlestitanium tagInconel tagSouth-east Asiaremigration
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 98 , Issue 4 , June 2018 , pp. 961 - 972
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Amason, A.N. and Mills, K.H. (1981) Bias and loss of precision due to tag loss in Jolly-Seber estimates for mark-recapture experiments. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 38, 1077–1095.Google Scholar
Balazs, G.H. (1982) Factors affecting the retention of metal tags on sea turtles. Marine Turtle Newsletter 20, 11–14.Google Scholar
Balazs, G.H. (1999) Factors to consider in the tagging of sea turtles. In Eckert, K.L., Bjorndal, K.A., Abreu-Grobois, F.A. and Donnelly, M. (eds) Research and management techniques for the conservation of sea turtles. IUCN/SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group Publication No. 4. Washington, DC, pp. 101–109.Google Scholar
Bjorndal, K.A., Bolten, A.B., Lagueux, C.J. and Chaves, A. (1996) Probability of tag loss in green turtles nesting at Tortuguero, Costa Rica. Journal of Herpetology 30, 567–571.Google Scholar
Brownie, C., Hines, J.E., Nichols, J.D., Pollock, K.H. and Hestbeck, J.B. (1993) Capture-recapture studies for multiple strata including non-Markovian transitions. Biometrics 49, 1173–1187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaloupka, M.Y. and Limpus, C.J. (2005) Estimates of sex- and age-class-specific survival probabilities for a southern Great Barrier Reef green sea turtle population. Marine Biology 146, 1251–1261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaloupka, M.Y. and Musick, J.A. (1997) Age, growth, and population dynamics. In Lutz, P.L. and Musick, J.A. (eds) The biology of sea turtles. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, pp. 233–276.Google Scholar
Chan, E.-H. (2010) A 16-year record of green and hawksbill turtle nesting activity at Chagar Hutang turtle sanctuary, Redang Island, Malaysia. Indian Ocean Turtle Newsletter 12, 1–5.Google Scholar
Chan, E.-H. (2013) A report on the first 16 years of a long-term marine turtle conservation project in Malaysia. Asian Journal of Conservation Biology 2, 129–135.Google Scholar
Cornelius, S.E. (1977) More on the tag loss problem. Marine Turtle Newsletter 5, 2.Google Scholar
Dutton, D.L., Dutton, P.H., Chaloupka, M. and Boulon, R.H. (2005) Increase of a Caribbean leatherback turtle Dermochelys coriacea nesting population linked to long-term nest protection. Biological Conservation 126, 186–194.Google Scholar
Hatase, H., Matsuzawa, Y., Sato, K., Bando, T. and Goto, K. (2004) Remigration and growth of loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) nesting on Senri Beach in Minabe, Japan: life-history polymorphism in a sea turtle population. Marine Biology 144, 807–811.Google Scholar
Hatase, H., Omuta, K. and Tsukamoto, K. (2013) A mechanism that maintains alternative life histories in a loggerhead sea turtle population. Ecology 94, 2583–2594.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayashi, R. (2016) A long-distance record of a recaptured green turtle (Chelonia mydas) from Okinawa. Fauna Ryukyuana 26, 5–7.Google Scholar
Hendrickson, J.R. (1958) The green sea turtle, Chelonia mydas (Linn.) in Malaya and Sarawak. Proceeding of the Zoological Society of London 130, 455–535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hestbeck, J.B., Nichols, J.D. and Malecki, R.A. (1991) Estimates of movement and site fidelity using mark-resight data of wintering Canada geese. Ecology 72, 523–533.Google Scholar
Kéry, M. and Schaub, M. (2012) Bayesian population analysis using WinBUGS: a hierarchical perspective. Waltham, MA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lazar, B., Margaritoulis, D. and Tvrtković, N. (2004) Tag recoveries of the loggerhead sea turtle Caretta caretta in the eastern Adriatic Sea: implications for conservation. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 84, 475–480.Google Scholar
Lebreton, J.-D., Burnham, K.P., Clobert, J. and Anderson, D.R. (1992) Modeling survival and testing biological hypotheses using marked animals: a unified approach with case studies. Ecological Monographs 62, 67–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liew, H.-C. and Chan, E.-H. (2002) An analysis of tagging data on the green turtles of Redang Island, Malaysia. In Mosier, A., Foley, A. and Brost, B. (eds) Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation. NOAA Technical Memorandum, NMFS-SEFSC-477. Miami, FL: NOAA, 135 pp.Google Scholar
Limpus, C.J. (1992) Estimation of tag loss in marine turtle research. Wildlife Research 19, 457–469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, T.L., Amstrup, S.C. and Manly, B.F.J. (2003) Tag loss can bias Jolly-Seber capture-recapture estimates. Wildlife Society Bulletin 31, 814–822.Google Scholar
McNeill, J.B., Schueller, A.M., Avens, L., Goodman Hall, A., Goshe, L.R. and Epperly, S.P. (2013) Estimates of tag loss for loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Western North Atlantic. Herpetological Review 44, 221–226.Google Scholar
Mrosovsky, N. (1976) The tag loss problem. Marine Turtle Newsletter 1, 3–4.Google Scholar
Oosthuizen, W.C., De Bruyn, P.J.N. and Bester, M.N. (2010) Cohort and tag-site-specific tag-loss rates in mark-recapture studies: a southern elephant seal cautionary case. Marine Mammal Science 26, 350–369.Google Scholar
Parmenter, C.J. (1993) A preliminary evaluation of the performance of passive integrated transponders and metal tags in a population study of the flatback sea turtle (Natator depressus). Wildlife Research 20, 375–381.Google Scholar
Pilcher, N. (2010) Population structure and growth of immature green turtles at Mantanani, Sabah, Malaysia. Journal of Herpetology 44, 168–171.Google Scholar
Read, T.C., Wantiez, L., Werry, J.M., Farman, R., Petro, G. and Limpus, C.J. (2014) Migrations of green turtles (Chelonia mydas) between nesting and foraging grounds across the Coral Sea. PLoS ONE 9, e100083.Google Scholar
Richardson, J.I., Hall, D.B., Mason, P.A., Andrews, K.M., Bjorkland, R., Cai, Y. and Bell, R. (2006) Eighteen years of saturation tagging data reveal a significant increases in nesting hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) on Long Island, Antigua. Animal Conservation 9, 302–307.Google Scholar
Rivalan, P., Godfrey, M.H., Prévot-Julliard, A.-C. and Girondot, M. (2005) Maximum likelihood estimates of tag loss in leatherback sea turtles. Journal of Wildlife Management 69, 540–548.Google Scholar
Sagun, V.G. (2004) Postnesting movements of green turtles tagged in the Turtle Islands Tawi-Tawi, Philippines. Marine Turtle Newsletter 104, 5–7.Google Scholar
Seminoff, J.A., Jones, T.T., Resendiz, A., Nichols, W.J. and Chaloupka, M.Y. (2003) Monitoring green turtles (Chelonia mydas) as a coastal foraging area in Baja California, Mexico: multiple indices describe population status. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 83, 1355–1362.Google Scholar
Spotila, J.R. (2004) Sea turtles: a complete guide to their biology, behavior, and conservation. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stokes, K.L., Fuller, W.J., Glen, F., Godley, B.J., Hodgson, D.J., Rhodes, K.A., Snape, R.T.E. and Broderick, A.C. (2014) Detecting green shoots of recovery: the importance of long-term individual-based monitoring of marine turtles. Animal Conservation 17, 593–602.Google Scholar
Tanaka, E. (2009) Estimation of temporal changes in the growth of green turtles Chelonia mydas in waters around the Ogasawara Islands. Fisheries Science 75, 629–639.Google Scholar
Troëng, S. and Chaloupka, M. (2007) Variation in adult annual survival probability and remigration intervals of sea turtles. Marine Biology 151, 1721–1730.Google Scholar
Troëng, S., Mangel, J. and Reyes, C. (2003) Comparison of Monel 49 and Inconel 681 flipper tag loss in green turtles, Chelonia mydas, nesting at Tortuguero, Costa Rica. In Seminoff, J.A. (ed.) Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation. NOAA Technical Memorandum, NMFS-SEFSC-503. Miami, FL: NOAA, pp. 121–122.Google Scholar
van Dam, R.P. and Diez, C.E. (1999) Differential tag retention in Caribbean hawksbill turtles. Chelonian Conservation and Biology 3, 225–229.Google Scholar
Watson, D.M. (2006) Growth rates of sea turtles in Watamu, Kenya. Earth and Environment 2, 29–53.Google Scholar
Wetherall, J.A. (1982) Analysis of double-tagging experiments. Fishery Bulletin 80, 687–701.Google Scholar
White, G.C. and Burnham, K.P. (1999) Program MARK: survival estimation from populations of marked animals. Bird Study 46, S120–S139.Google Scholar
Yasuda, T., Tanaka, H., Kittiwattanawong, K., Mitamura, H., Klom-in, W. and Arai, N. (2006) Do female green turtles (Chelonia mydas) exhibit reproductive seasonality in a year-round nesting rookery? Journal of Zoology, London 269, 451–457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Nishizawa supplementary material

Appendix A-D

Download Nishizawa supplementary material(File)
File 186.2 KB