Bryan P Wallace

Ecolibrium Inc

Human exploitation of wildlife for food, medicine, curios, aphrodisiacs, and spiritual artifacts represents a mounting 21st-century conservation challenge. Here, we provide the first global assessment of illegal marine turtle exploitation across multiple spatial scales (i.e., Regional Management Units [RMUs] and countries) by collating data from pe...

Are you a parachute scientists? This SWOT invites sea turtle scientists to consider this question which hopefully will help towards a more ethical and meaningful conservation.

Comprehensive assessments of species’ extinction risks have documented the extinction crisis and underpinned strategies for reducing those risks. Global assessments reveal that, among tetrapods, 40.7% of amphibians, 25.4% of mammals and 13.6% of birds are threatened with extinction. Because global assessments have been lacking, reptiles have been o...

Comprehensive assessments of species’ extinction risks have documented the extinction crisis and underpinned strategies for reducing those risks. Global assessments reveal that, among tetrapods, 40.7% of amphibians, 25.4% of mammals and 13.6% of birds are threatened with extinction. Because global assessments have been lacking, reptiles have been o...

Aim Understanding the spatial ecology of animal movements is a critical element in conserving long‐lived, highly mobile marine species. Analyzing networks developed from movements of six sea turtle species reveals marine connectivity and can help prioritize conservation efforts. Location Global. Methods We collated telemetry data from 1235 indivi...

Sea turtles nest on tropical and subtropical beaches, where developmental success of egg clutches depends on nest temperature. Higher nest temperatures increase embryo and hatchling mortalities and produce female hatchlings. Nest shading has been used on some beaches to reduce nest temperatures, and thereby increase number of hatchlings and reduce...

In July 2020, the Conservation Planning Specialist Group (CPSG) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission (SSC) was enlisted by the international non-profit sea turtle conservation organization, Upwell, to design and facilitate a two-step decision making process to inform conservation efforts for the C...

This is a 2021 update to a NOAA guidance document originally published in 2003.

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a "Green List of Species" (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species' progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 s...

For breath-holding marine animals, tradeoffs between ‘active’ and resting behaviours during periods of submergence can have consequences for acquisition and allocation of energy to vital life history requirements. In this study, we fitted 18 green turtles (Chelonia mydas) with detachable time-depth recorder (TDR) systems to obtain and analyse fine-...

Science that supports biodiversity conservation has become increasingly sophisticated in technical and quantitative terms. These developments are good for biodiversity science and scientists, and represent “progress.” But they tend to separate researchers from their actual study subjects: living beings in the wild. It's not enough for us to be mode...

Plastic pollution is increasing rapidly throughout the world’s oceans and is considered a major threat to marine wildlife and ecosystems. Although known to cause lethal or sub-lethal effects to vulnerable marine megafauna, population-level impacts of plastic pollution have not been thoroughly investigated. Here, we compiled and evaluated informatio...

Industrial and small-scale coastal (i.e., ‘artisanal’) pelagic fisheries in the eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) interact with one of the most vulnerable fishery bycatch species, the East Pacific (EP) stock of leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea). As a result of the species’ longevity, slow growth, low reproductive output, and critically low popula...

Failure to improve the conservation status of endangered species is often related to inadequate allocation of conservation resources to highest priority issues. Eastern Pacific (EP) leatherbacks are perhaps the most endangered sea turtle population in the world, and continue on a path to regional extinction. To provide coherent, regional conservati...

The East Pacific (EP) leatherback population is listed by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as Critically Endangered. Despite conservation efforts, mainly focused on nesting beaches, its population has declined by over 90% since the 1980s. A major current threat is fisheries bycatch, which has been primarily documented in small-scale gillnets...

To investigate regional patterns in marsh recovery following restoration, a meta-analysis of nekton densities at restored and reference marshes in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) was conducted. Results were variable at both restored and reference sites, but general trends with respect to the age of the restored site were observed. Pooled together...

Estuaries in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) provide habitat for many ecologically, commercially, and recreationally important fish and crustacean species (i.e., nekton), but patterns of nekton abundance and community assemblages across habitat types, salinity zones, and seasons have not been described region-wide. Recognizing the wealth of infor...

The distributions of migratory species in the ocean span local, national and international jurisdictions. Across these ecologically interconnected regions, migratory marine species interact with anthropogenic stressors throughout their lives. Migratory connectivity, the geographical linking of individuals and populations throughout their migratory...

The internesting interval separates successive clutches of sea turtle eggs, and its duration varies both among and within species. Here, we review the potential physiological limits to this interval, and develop the hypothesis that desalination capacity limits the internesting interval owing to the requirement for water deposition in eggs. Sea turt...

Coastal Louisiana—and its Mississippi River Delta, in particular—provides large and diverse habitats for many types of birds in North America and beyond. The Mississippi River and its distributaries have shaped Louisiana's unique coast, which includes extensive marsh and marsh islands, sandy barrier headlands and sandy islands, and isolated patches...

Anthropogenic climate change is widely considered a major threat to global biodiversity, such that the ability of a species to adapt will determine its likelihood of survival. Egg‐burying reptiles that exhibit temperature‐dependent sex determination, such as critically endangered hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata), are particularly vulnerab...

Translocation is used by managers to mitigate the negative impacts of development on species. Moving individuals to a new location is challenging, and many translocation attempts have failed. Robust, posttranslocation monitoring is therefore important for evaluating effects of translocation on target species. We evaluated the efficacy of a transloc...

Hydrocarbon (i.e. oil) extraction, transport, consumption, and pollution occur daily in marine environments, threatening vulnerable natural resources, habitats, and biodiversity. However, threats of episodic oil spills to imperiled marine species are not as well-studied as more acute, readily apparent threats such as incidental capture in fisheries...

Many broadly distributed migratory species exhibit fidelity to fine-scale areas that support vital life history requirements (e.g., resource acquisition, reproduction). Thus, such areas are critical for population dynamics and are of high conservation priority. Leatherback sea turtles are among the world's most widely distributed species, and their...

Healthy fisheries can reduce bycatch Bycatch of marine mammals, turtles, and birds during commercial fishing is a considerable threat. Activities intended to reduce bycatch are often thought to conflict with commercial fishing. However, Burgess et al. show that in the majority of cases, managing fishery stocks to best promote long-term sustainabili...

Leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) have declined dramatically in the eastern Pacific Ocean (EP) in recent decades. Traditionally, population assessments have relied on the numbers of turtles on the beaches with the highest abundance of turtles (index beaches) and often disregarded the importance of nesting beaches with smaller, but still re...

The first documented long-term sea turtle research and conservation project in the world was officially launched in Latin America (Tortuguero, Costa Rica) in 1955. Despite the enormous advances in research and conservation in the nearly seven decades since, many questions still remain unanswered about fundamental aspects of ecology and population d...

In 2010, an international group of 35 sea turtle researchers refined an initial list of more than 200 research questions into 20 metaquestions that were considered key for management and conservation of sea turtles. These were classified under 5 categories: reproductive biology , biogeography, population ecology, threats and conservation strategies...

Hundreds of externally and internally oiled juvenile oceanic sea turtles were documented and rescued during the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) metabolites in the bile and tissues of some individuals confirmed internal exposure and metabolism of oil. The adverse effects associated with becoming physically mi...

The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill was unprecedented in extent and duration, and affected marine natural resources, including sea turtles, throughout the northern Gulf of Mexico. Consequently, US federal and state Trustees documented and quantified oil exposure and resulting injuries to sea turtles under the DWH Natural Resource Damage Assessmen...

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill posed a severe threat to surface-pelagic sea turtles because the surface convergence zones, which provide vital habitat by aggregating pelagic Sargassum and other floating material, also aggregated floating oil. Following the DWH spill, turtle rescue operations between 17 May and 9 September 2010 documente...

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill and associated response activities overlapped with habitats for multiple life stages of federally protected sea turtles in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Although most assessment efforts focused on documenting the presence, abundance, and exposure of sea turtles to DWH oil in marine habitats, oil also washed...

The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) incident was the largest offshore oil spill in the history of the United States, contaminating surface waters, the water column, deep-sea corals and benthos, nearshore and coastal ecosystems, and natural resources across 5 states and an ocean area of more than 112 000 km² in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). Protected marine spe...

Individual variation in diet composition has important evolutionary, ecological, and conservation implications. However, few studies of marine turtles have examined long-term foraging behavior of individuals. Using stable carbon (13C) and nitrogen (?15N) isotope values from blood plasma, we examined long-term variation in resource use of 27 juvenil...

Los biólogos conservacionistas frecuentemente utilizan datos de las mismas especies o especies relacionadas los cuales han sido recolectados en diversas ubicaciones geográficas para orientar las intervenciones en situaciones donde su aplicabilidad es incierta. Existen peligros inherentes al utilizar este enfoque. Los hábitats de anidación de las to...

Desert resource environments (e.g., microclimates, food) are tied to limited, highly localized rainfall regimes which generate microgeographic variation in the life histories of inhabitants. Typically, enhanced growth rates, reproduction and survivorship are observed in response to increased resource availability in a variety of desert plants and s...

Remote tracking of migratory species and statistical modeling of behaviors have enabled identification of areas that are of high ecological value to these widely distributed taxa. However, direct observations at fine spatio-temporal scales are often needed to correctly interpret behaviors. In this study, we combined GPS-derived locations and archiv...

Understanding the causes and consequences of variability in trophic status is important for interpreting population dynamics and for identifying important habitats for protected species like marine turtles. In the northwest Atlantic Ocean, many leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) from distinct breeding stocks throughout the Wider Caribbean r...

Significance Loss of megafauna, termed trophic downgrading, has been found to affect biotic interactions, disturbance regimes, species invasions, and nutrient cycling. One recognized cause in air-breathing marine megafauna is incidental capture or bycatch by fisheries. Characterizing megafauna bycatch patterns across large ocean regions is limited...

Spatially explicit conservation efforts to identify, designate, and prioritize protected areas or biologically significant areas require analyses beyond basic species distribution and abundance studies, including assessments of migration patterns, habitat use, and ecological drivers of behavior. With the advent of alternate survey methods and platf...

In recent decades, many marine populations have experienced major declines in abundance, but we still know little about where management interventions may help protect the highest levels of marine biodiversity. We used modeled spatial distribution data for nearly 12,500 species to quantify global patterns of species richness and two measures of end...

Enhancing species resilience to changing environmental conditions is often suggested as a climate change adaptation strategy. To effectively achieve this, it is necessary first to understand the factors that determine species resilience, and their relative importance in shaping the ability of species to adjust to the complexities of environmental c...

Fisheries bycatch is considered the most serious threat globally to long-lived marine megafauna (e.g., mammals, birds, turtles, elasmobranchs). However, bycatch assessments to date have not evaluated population-level bycatch impacts across fishing gears. Here, we provide the first global, multigear evaluation of population-level fisheries bycatch i...

Stressors associated with human activities interact in complex ways to affect marine ecosystems , yet we lack spatially explicit assessments of cumulative impacts on ecologically and economically key components such as marine predators. Here we develop a metric of cumulative utilization and impact (CUI) on marine predators by combining electronic t...

The foraging success or feeding rate of an animal is important information for ecologists and wildlife man-agers but can be difficult to assess, particularly in marine vertebrates that are hard to follow at sea. Here we evaluate a method for determining recent feeding history using a single blood sample by measuring the concentration of relevant se...

Understanding the movement and dive behaviour of marine turtles directly informs spatial management strategies. Hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata, Linnaeus 1766) are a globally endangered marine turtle species, with populations in the eastern Pacific Ocean identified as particularly threatened. To date, very little research on the dive beha...

Elucidating spatio-temporal movements of animals is an integral component of wildlife conservation and protected species management. Between 2008 and 2010 we satellite tracked 15 adult female hawksbill turtles Eretmochelys imbricata in the eastern Pacific Ocean to evaluate their movement behavior and to guide management and conservation efforts of...

Many sea turtle nesting colonies are in decline worldwide, and a common conservation practice maximizes hatchling production by translocating eggs from threatened nests to protective beach hatcheries. Typically, translocated eggs are 'doomed', or at risk of death due to tidal inundation, predation, or poaching. Sea turtles exhibit temperature-depen...