Adriatic Sea represents the largest neritic foraging ground for loggerhead sea turtles ( Caretta caretta ) within the Mediterranean Sea. As ectothermic organisms, loggerhead sea turtles in Adriatic Sea inhabit seasonally dynamic thermal environment with winter sea temperatures as low as 7 °C. Despite the ecological and conservation significance, the space use strategies employed as a response to thermal variation remain poorly...

Marine coastal ecosystems provide a variety of habitats for biodiversity. However, they are affected by bycatch, the unintentional capture of non-target species during fishing operations such as gillnets, trammel nets, and longlines. To mitigate bycatch, modifications such as LED and UV lights in gillnets and trammel nets and C-type (circle) hooks in longlines have been studied worldwide. Yet, studies remain limited in Türkiye...

Climate change is altering the thermal environment of nesting beaches worldwide, threatening species with temperature‐dependent sex determination (TSD) such as sea turtles. While models have predicted feminization of primary sex ratios—that is, a progressive increase in the proportion of females—empirical, population‐scale evidence across multiple species remains rare. Here we present the first broad‐scale, multi‐species evide...

Sea turtles spend the majority of their lives at foraging grounds. These areas are important for population persistence but generally occur in coastal habitats, which are under increasing human pressure. Identifying key foraging areas is therefore an important step to understanding critical sea turtle habitats, and therefore their threats. Isotope ratios ( δ 15 N, δ 13 C) from skin tissues of 90 green turtles ( Chelonia mydas...

Understanding natural movement patterns and ecological roles of marine megafauna is a research priority best studied in areas with minimal human impact. The spatial distribution patterns specifically for immature turtles at foraging grounds have been highlighted as a research gap for effective management and conservation strategies for sea turtle populations. Capture–mark–recapture (CMR) records ( n = 2287) of 1672 immature gr...

Investigating biological aspects of migratory marine animals like sea turtles is challenging. The Adriatic Sea is a key Mediterranean foraging ground for loggerhead turtles, yet certain feeding behaviors remain poorly known, including winter feeding and foraging within the neritic area of the Gulf of Manfredonia. With high fishing effort, this area experiences considerable turtle bycatch from trawlers during winter, representi...

Assessing the linkage between breeding and non-breeding areas has important implications for understanding the fundamental biology of and conserving animal species. This is a challenging task for marine species, and in sea turtles a combination of stable isotope analysis (SIA) and satellite telemetry has been increasingly used. The Northwest Atlantic (NWA) loggerhead ( Caretta caretta ) Regional Management Unit, one of the lar...

The Adriatic Sea is one of the main foraging areas for marine turtles of the Mediterranean Sea, but the specific high-use sites are poorly known, due to the scarceness of satellite tracking data available for juvenile turtles frequenting the area. In the present study, we tracked 8 juvenile and adult loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) that were released along the north-western Adriatic coast after a rehabilitation period hav...

Changes in marine ecosystems from human stressors, and concerns over how species will respond to these changes have emphasized the importance of understanding and monitoring crucial demographic parameters for population models. Long-lived, migratory, marine vertebrates such as sea turtles are particularly vulnerable to changes. Life-history parameters like growth-in-body size can be largely influenced by environmental processe...

In sea turtles, somatic growth rates and Age at Sexual Maturity (ASM) are important parameters for investigating population dynamics. Moreover, ASM informs on the time lag needed to observe the effects of past environmental variables, threats and conservation measures acting at nesting beaches on future numbers of clutches or nesting females, that are the most monitored indices. Assessing ASM of mixed populations that share th...

Environmental policies, including the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), generally rely on the measurement of indicators to assess the good environmental status (GES) and ensure the protection of marine ecosystems. However, depending on available scientific knowledge and monitoring programs in place, quantitative GES assessments are not always feasible. This is specifically the case for marine turtle species,...

Bycatch is one of the key threats to juvenile marine turtles in the Mediterranean Sea. As fishing methods are regional or habitat specific, the susceptibility of marine turtles may differ according to inter- and intra-population variations in foraging ecology. An understanding of these variations is necessary to assess bycatch susceptibility and to implement region-specific management. To determine if foraging ecology differs...