Uncertain future for global turtle populations in face of sea level rise

    The research article I chose for review is called Uncertain future for global sea turtle populations in face of sea level rise from the scientific reports journal. There were a total of ten authors in this paper with the first three being Marga L. Rivas, Emilio Rodriguez-Caballero, and Nicole Esteban (the rest can be found in the link at the end). In this research article, they talked about how climate change is accelerating sea level rise which can become a series problem for animals that rely on the coastal habitat. It focused on seven sea turtle rookeries with the five sea turtle species being leatherbacks, loggerheads, hawksbill, olive ridley, and green turtles. The areas that they picked were found in Australia, Florida, Cuba, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Dom. Rep. and St. Eustatius. The tools used in the research were Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and Coastal DEM predictions. These were used to run models to estimate the potential impact of flooding from sea level rise in these sea turtle rookies where nesting occurs. In Figure 1, two of the locations showed a 100% chance of vulnerability to sea turtle nests from sea level rise in both 2050 to 2100; Australia which will affect the green sea turtle and the Dominican Republic which will affect the green, hawksbill, and leatherback sea turtle. The five sea turtles were listed in order from vulnerable to critically endangered and the green sea turtle was the one at the highest risk making this very concerning. There were two other areas where the green sea turtle nests had either less or greater than a 50% chance of vulnerability to sea level rise. This is important data because these areas will likely be able to be used when the other two areas become unusable. Management plans can be made to combat with these future issues. It is also important that other areas used by green sea turtles for nesting are found and monitored for risks. Dominican Republic's vulnerability to sea rise also affects the leatherback sea turtle and hawksbill sea turtle. This could possibly lead to overlapping issues where different sea turtle species are competing for space. 

    Figure 4 shows heat maps of Florida (a), Cuba (b), and St. Eustatius (c) with nests that are mostly to be affected by flooding and the highest areas of concern. This is important for making sure that other areas are managed properly in order to protect them from future flooding. These three areas have the lowest chance of coastal flooding vulnerability but are important for loggerheads, leatherbacks, hawksbills, and most importantly green sea turtles. 

    I found this study important because it shows what areas are of the highest concern and can help with determining the proper management plans needed for each species. Ways to expand on this study would be to find other important rookeries for each species, especially the green sea turtles that are currently critically endangered, and determine which ones can still be preserved to some degree or may be completely lost to sea level rise according to future projections.  

Article Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31467-1

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