Physical and Chemical Factors Affecting Hatching in the Green Sea Turtle, Chelonia Mydas (L.)
1968
Bustard, H Robert | Greenham, Peter
The successful construction of an egg chamber by nesting turtles in coral sand requires that sand slippage be prevented. The factors preventing this are presence of sufficient moisture and/or tree rootlets. Under average conditions of tree rootlets, if the sand was moist enough for the turtle to successfully dig a chamber it contained an adequate water content for incubation. Chlorinity values of natural nests were very low, averaging about 50 mgCl—/kg. At the time of construction natural nest temperatures were about 25%C but metabolic heating increased this by approximately 6°C towards the end of the incubaton period. Under experimental conditions high incubation success was obtained at temperatures of 27, 30 and 32ᵒC. No eggs hatched at 15, 20 and 38C. Eggs incubated at 30°C in sand containing 365 and 730 mgCl—/kg successfully hatched (although percentage hatch decreased with increasing chlorinity) indicating that chlorinity in the natural nest was not a limiting factor.
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