Young loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings, just two inches long, use a combination of strategic swimming interspersed with passive drifting in ocean currents to migrate around the North Atlantic basin after emerging from nests on eastern Florida beaches, according to new research led by a marine biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“Young turtles probably rely on a strategy of ‘smart swimming’ to optimize their energy use during migrations,” biologist Kenneth Lohmann said in a news release issued by the National Science Foundation about the research. “The new results tell us that a surprisingly small amount of directional swimming in just the right places has a profound effect on the migratory paths that turtles follow and on whether they reach habitats favorable for survival.”
The research by Lohmann’s team was published in the June issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology, and was partially funded by the foundation.
The conclusions were based on computer simulations combining ocean currents and ‘virtual turtles” swimming for various periods of time. The results challenge previous conclusions that young sea turtles drift passively, with their distribution determined only by ocean currents, the press release said.
Read the complete article in The Times-Picayune