Thesis Project in a Nutshell
So, a little information about my research project huh? I can do that.
I worked on St. Catherines Island on 2015 and 2016 during the summer as a sea turtle intern and researcher. While there, I worked as a team to identify and protect sea turtle nests. We check on those nests while they incubate for 55-65 days and then we inventory the nest to determine how successful the nest was. During an inventory, we count the numbers of hatched and unhatched eggs.
I noticed while doing those inventories that some nests had great hatches--almost every single egg hatched (and we'd see plenty of hatchling crawlways leaving the nest). However, while elbows deep in other nests, I'd pull out handfuls of rotten eggs. Some of those rotten nests were in locations where the rotten eggs made ecological sense (eg. the nest had been washed over during several spring high tides and the eggs had drowned). Other rotten nests blew my mind. I remember gagging over rotten egg smell thinking that these eggs should have been turtles--the nest was higher up on a dune where it wouldn't be washed over. That got me thinking that there have to be more important factors at play other than just temperature and moisture running the whole show.
My project proposes to look at temperature, moisture, percent vegetation cover, vegetation content, dune steepness and orientation to the sun, number of tidal inundations, and elevation. My hope is to make a model which better predicts hatch success. In the state of Georgia, we move nests that are in danger of being washed over repeatedly by tides. It's so important when moving these nests that we relocate them to locations where they will be most successful. Maybe temperature and moisture are the only things that matter. Maybe nests on north-facing dunes do better than ones on south-facing ones. If a nest is too high on a dune, will it get too hot? I'm hoping this project can explain some of these things.
When I find a nest, I remove all of the eggs momentarily so I can get a total egg count. I replace half of the eggs, and then I insert a HOBO datalogger which is programmed to take temperature readings every 30 minutes. I finish returning the eggs back to their home for the next two months, and I pack them down with sand just like their mama did the night before. We then stake down a plastic mesh screen on the nest that will hopefully keep out feral hogs and raccoons. I'm able to take moisture measurements with the use of a moisture probe that I insert into the sand just outside of the nest. I record the vegetation percent cover and composition in the square meter area surrounding the nest. Throughout incubation, moisture measurements are taken again, and every day the nest is checked to make sure the tide hasn't washed over it.
Just a quick overview of my project. More info and shenanigans to come.