Summary of Rayleigh’s <i>z</i> statistical tests of directional uniformity applied to the daily directional data from tag movement, current direction, swimming direction, and the difference between the directions of swimming and prevailing current.

<p>The p values indicated by * and ** are indicative of statistically significant (p<0.05, p<0.01, respectively) directional departures from uniformity.</p

Summary of satellite tag information for 42 juvenile loggerhead turtles released off New Caledonia on 9-September-2008.

<p>Argos ID code, turtle size (SCL, straight carapace length) and weight, final location, final date, distance traveled, and transmitting days are presented for each tagged turtle.</p

Generalized additive model for v-component (north/south) of oceanic juvenile loggerhead turtle swimming direction estimated from HYCOM shallow currents.

<p>Generalized additive model for v-component (north/south) of oceanic juvenile loggerhead turtle swimming direction estimated from HYCOM shallow currents.</p

Investigating the Potential Role of Persistent Organic Pollutants in Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle Fibropapillomatosis

It has been hypothesized for decades that environmental pollutants may contribute to green sea turtle fibropapillomatosis (FP), possibly through immunosuppression leading to greater susceptibility to the herpesvirus, the putative causative agent of this tumor-forming disease. To address this question, we measured concentrations of 164 persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and halogenated phenols in 53 Hawaiian green turtle (<i>Chelonia mydas</i>) plasma samples archived by the Biological and Environmental Monitoring and Archival of Sea Turtle Tissues (BEMAST) project at the National Institute of Standards and Technology Marine Environmental Specimen Bank. Four groups of turtles were examined: free-ranging turtles from Kiholo Bay (0% FP, Hawaii), Kailua Bay (low FP, 8%, Oahu), and Kapoho Bay (moderate FP, 38%, Hawaii) and severely tumored stranded turtles that required euthanasia (high FP, 100%, Main Hawaiian Islands). Four classes of POPs and seven halogenated phenols were detected in at least one of the turtles, and concentrations were low (often <200 pg/g wet mass). The presence of halogenated phenols in sea turtles is a novel discovery; their concentrations were higher than most man-made POPs, suggesting that the source of most of these compounds was likely natural (produced by the algal turtle diet) rather than metabolites of man-made POPs. None of the compounds measured increased in concentration with increasing prevalence of FP across the four groups of turtles, suggesting that these 164 compounds are not likely primary triggers for the onset of FP. However, the stranded, severely tumored, emaciated turtle group (<i>n</i> = 14) had the highest concentrations of POPs, which might suggest that mobilization of contaminants with lipids into the blood during late-stage weight loss could contribute to the progression of the disease. Taken together, these data suggest that POPs are not a major cofactor in causing the onset of FP

Satellite tag trajectories of 42 tagged oceanic juvenile loggerhead turtles.

<p>The single star denotes the release site for all 42 turtles, and the circles denote the final transmission site for each turtle.</p

Generalized additive model for u-component (east/west) of oceanic juvenile loggerhead turtle swimming direction estimated from HYCOM shallow currents.

<p>Generalized additive model for u-component (east/west) of oceanic juvenile loggerhead turtle swimming direction estimated from HYCOM shallow currents.</p

Summary of Batschelet second-order statistical analysis of directional uniformity applied to the daily difference between the directions of swimming and prevailing current.

<p>The p values indicated by * and ** are indicative of statistically significant (p<0.05, p<0.01, respectively) directional departures from uniformity.</p

Average direction of tag movement, HYCOM shallow currents, and estimated swimming direction over the duration of this study.

<p>Axis units are in centimeters per second.</p

Summary of velocity and direction for movements by Tag, Current_D, Current_O, Current_HS, Current_HI, Current_HD, Swimming_D, Swimming_O, Swimming_HS, Swimming_HI, Swimming_HD, and Swimming_AVG.

<p>The subscripts D, O, HS, HI, HD, and AVG refer to currents or swimming components estimated under current fields originating from Drifters, OSCAR currents, HYCOM Shallow currents, HYCOM Intermediate currents, HYCOM Deep currents, and Average currents, respectively.</p

Tabulations of daily satellite tag displacement, HYCOM shallow currents, and inferred swimming direction.

<p>The swimming direction differencing to HYCOM shallow currents shown in the lower right panel is a relative direction where North is the direction of the HYCOM surface current and South is against the direction of the HYCOM surface current. Average unweighted resultant vector is plotted for each tabulation.</p