How turtles find their way home
On the migration of loggerhead hatchlings: Using continuous and discrete methods to model their behaviour and assess recent survival rates
J.P.C. Remmen (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
H. YoldaΕ β Mentor (TU Delft - Mathematical Physics)
V.E.F. Freingruber β Mentor (TU Delft - BT/Environmental Biotechnology)
Havva Yoldas β Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Mathematical Physics)
JG Spandaw β Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Analysis)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
We investigate the migratory behaviour of juvenile loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) hatchlings within a region of the North Atlantic Gyre. To do so, we develop and compare an individual based (IB) model and a partial differential equation (PDE) model, specifically an advection-diffusion equation derived from a position-jump process. We compare their behaviour and show that they yield similar results, but that there are still some differences between the two. Using the IB model we assess survival probabilities of hatchlings in recent years (2016-2023), revealing that survival rates are statistically significantly (π-value = 2.62 β 10^β6) not constant over time in this region. However, there could be global events that influence the survival probability, as years 2019 and 2023 have a large deviation in survival probability.