Spatiotemporal patterns of annual sea turtle nesting behaviors along an East Central Florida beach

The Florida coastline from Melbourne Beach to Wabasso Beach is one the most important nesting areas for loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Western Hemisphere and for green turtles (Chelonia mydas) in the United States. In this study, we quantified the spatial patterns of numerous loggerhead (Napproximate to400,000) and green turtle (Napproximate to14,000) and less numerous (Napproximate to100) leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) beach ascents from 1989-1999 in terms of their autocorrelative properties along 40.5 km within this critical reproductive zone. Nesting and non-nesting emergence patterns of loggerhead and green turtles were non-random, favoring the southern half of the study area. Perhaps due to low numbers or differences in nesting behavior, leatherback nest distributions were not significantly different from random. Loggerhead and green turtle nest locations exhibited similar clinal patterns. They were positively autocorrelated at distances less than 10 kin and negatively at distances greater than 30 km. These patterns were significantly correlated interannually. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved