About This Project

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

I have a Ph.D. in ecology and work as a wildlife nutritional ecologist. I teach college classes in ecology and feeding ecology and nutrition. Throughout my career, I have worked almost exclusively on endangered species. I have worked in Samoa, Papau New Guinea, Belize, and Vietnam on projects to help understand if animals are meeting their nutritional needs through diet. Nutritional ecology and foraging ecology are critical to understanding food availability, selection, and population ecology for a species. I really want to help sea turtles and fear that this new sea grass may represent a new threat to an already endangered species.

What is the significance of this project?

Turtles feed on sea grass for over 90% of their adult diet, and so it is critical to their survival. This new sea grass was released into the world's oceans with the opening of the Suez Canal, and and is considered one of the world's worst invasives. But nobody has ever nutritionally analyzed this species. I would like to understand if this species will harm the sea turtles if they consume it. If so, managers can remove it before it outcompetes the native sea grasses.

What are the goals of the project?

I am taking a team of four undergraduate students with me so we can accomplish a lot while there.

Goal 1:I plan to survey all of the bays where the invasive sea grass has established, and collect samples of both the native and invasive for nutritional analysis.

Goal 2: I also plan to observe the sea turtles to see how they forage on the invasive sea grass. Do they ignore it, prefer it, or consume it in equal amounts as the native sea grass? This will tell us how they are perceiving it as a food source in their environment.