Tucker, Anton D. 



Revised Estimate of Annual Reproductive Capacity 



for Leatherback Sea Turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) 



Based on Intraseasonal Clutch Frequency 



Georgia Marine Turtle Cooperative Program 

 Institute of Ecology 

 University of Georgia 

 Athens, Georgia 30602 USA 



Nesting of leatherback sea turtles has been intensively 

 monitored by a saturation tagging project at Culebra National 

 Wildlife Refuge, Puerto Rico, from 1984 to 1987. The rookery is 

 considered to be a minor Caribbean nesting assemblage but is 

 unique in being patrolled frequently enough to insure that all 

 nesting females are tagged and are subsequently recorded at all 

 other intraseasonal nestings within the study site. The short 

 lengths of the study beaches, lack of alternative nesting 

 habitats outside the study sites, and intense coverage of the 

 study sites result in a very high probability of encountering 

 each female to verify all nesting events within a season. The 

 opportunity to study a relatively complete annual nesting history 

 for each female in the nesting aggregate has not previously been 

 available. Data recorded for annual observed clutch frequency 

 (OCF) and estimated clutch frequency (ECF) exceed published 

 accounts for Dermochelys . OCFs of ten nests within a season have 

 been documented. These revised estimates of annual reproductive 

 output indicate that current world population estimates for 

 leatherbacks derived from basing species abundance on more 

 moderate estimates of annual reproductive output may be 

 significantly overestimating true population levels. 



Nesting frequency of individual leatherbacks nesting at Culebra, 

 P.R. 1984-1987. 



Year # Turtles OCF 



ECF 



1984 

 1985 

 1986 

 1987 



n=27* 

 n=17 

 n=14 

 n=25 



range 1-10) 

 range 1-11) 

 range 2-10) 

 range 1-11) 



* OCF and ECF for 1984 calculated for 25 nesting females. Two 

 additional females were tagged but did not nest on the study site. 



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