Nathan J. Robinson

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Institut de Ciències del Mar · Department of Marine Biology

The increasing quantity of plastic debris in the oceans pose a growing threat to marine life. Large amounts of plastic debris are often reported in the gastrointestinal tracts of necropsied sea turtles, but only rarely is it possible to report on the potential impacts of plastic debris on living turtles. Here, we describe an encounter with a male o...

Previous studies have shown that the world’s largest reptile – the leatherback turtle Dermochelys coriacea – conducts flexible foraging migrations that can cover thousands of kilometres between nesting sites and distant foraging areas. The vast distances that may be travelled by migrating leatherback turtles have greatly complicated conservation ef...

The legend of the “kraken” has captivated humans for millennia, yet our knowledge of the large deep-sea cephalopods that inspired this myth remains limited. Conventional methods for exploring the deep sea, including the use of nets, manned submersibles, and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), are primarily suited for studying slow-moving or sessile...

Sea turtles are a circumglobal taxon that receive considerable research and conservation attention; however, there is little published information about patterns of representation for people working with these species. To assess long-term trends in gender, geographic, and institutional representation within the sea turtle community, we quantified i...

Monitoring the effects of climate change and other multi-years processes on coastal ecosystems require long-term datasets that may extend into decades. One tool to achieve this are cabled seafloor observatories that can collect continual streams of environmental and biological data as long as the equipment is maintained. Here, we used 10-years of t...

The use of animal‐borne devices (= biologgers) has revolutionized the study of marine megafauna, yet there remains a paucity of data concerning the behavioral and physiological impacts of biologger attachment and retention. Here, we used animal‐borne cameras to characterize the behavior and dive duration of juvenile green turtles (Chelonia mydas) i...

We report on an adult male green turtle (Chelonia mydas) feeding on fallen leaves from a terrestrial tree, frangipani (Plumeria rubra), in the waters in front of Cabuyal—a known sea turtle nesting beach—on the north Pacific coast of Costa Rica. This observation, in conjunction with similar reports worldwide, corroborates that terrestrial leaves may...

This database serves to summarize over 100 years of sea turtle epibiont research. We conducted a two-tiered literature search to compile all records of sea turtle-epibiont interactions along with their associated metadata. A structured search was conducted in Web of Science, Google Scholar, and Sea Turtle Online Bibliography (Archie Carr Center for...

Life on our planet likely evolved in the ocean, and thus exo-oceans are key habitats to search for extraterrestrial life. We conducted a data-driven bibliographic survey on the astrobiology literature to identify emerging research trends with marine science for future synergies in the exploration for extraterrestrial life in exo-oceans. Based on se...

The rapid advancement of digital technologies such as digital twins, AI and machine learning has opened up promising avenues for ecological actions, including conservation, research and restoration. These technologies offer improved monitoring capabilities that can enhance our understanding of ecological processes and biodiversity. The EU-funded DI...

Environmental enrichment (EE) can significantly improve the welfare and health of captive animals. Despite the known benefits of EE, there has been a lack of research on the effects of EE devices (EED) for wild animals. Here, we quantified the time loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) in a rehabilitation center spent interacting with EEDs, specific...

Sea turtles are an iconic group of marine megafauna that have been exposed to multiple anthropogenic threats across their different life stages, especially in the past decades. This has resulted in population declines, and consequently many sea turtle populations are now classified as threatened or endangered globally. Although some populations of...

Booralana nickorum sp. nov. is described from the deep-water slope of the Exuma Sound, The Bahamas, from depths of 540 to 560 metres. It is the fourth species to be assigned to the genus and the second species described from the Western North Atlantic. The species can be distinguished from Booralana tricarinata Camp and Heard, 1988 and the other sp...

Tissue and blood gas embolism (GE) associated with fisheries bycatch are likely a widespread, yet underestimated, cause of sea turtle mortality. Here, we evaluated risk factors associated with tissue and blood GE in loggerhead turtles caught incidentally by trawl and gillnet fisheries on the Valencian coastline of Spain. Of 413 turtles (303 caught...

Photo identification involves classifying unique features of a specific individual. The distinguishing feature used in most sea turtle photo ID studies are the scale patterns on the head. Yet the scale patterns on the turtles' flippers are arguably more complex and could provide an alternative and more robust area for photo ID. Here, we compared th...

Maguimithrax spinosissimus (Caribbean Spider Crab) is the largest crab in the Western Atlantic, reaching 3 kg in weight and 170 mm carapace width (CW). There are currently no commercial fisheries for M. spinosissimus; however, its large size and relative abundance could make this species a potential candidate for an artisanal fishery. Here, we inve...

N. norvegicus supports one of the most commercially-important fisheries in the Mediterranean, and there is considerable interest in developing non-invasive sampling stock assessment methods. Currently, stock assessments are conducted via trawling or by UnderWater TeleVision (UWTV) surveys with limited capacity to provide direct population data due...

Simple Summary The Norway lobster is a key species for European Atlantic and Mediterranean fisheries. We performed a global bibliographic survey using the VOSviewer software to investigate the status of research on Norway lobsters by extracting data from all relevant scientific literature published in SCOPUS since 1965. The analysis revealed three...

The recent commercialization of unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) has facilitated their incorporation into a variety of ecological studies. While UAVs are able to provide accurate visual data of marine species from an aerial perspective, these devices have some limitations that make measuring marine animals below the surface challenging. Many marin...

Sea turtles generally lay several clutches of eggs in a single nesting season. While a negative correlation between water temperatures and the time required between constitutive nesting events (termed the internesting interval) has been previously reported in loggerhead Caretta caretta and green turtles Chelonia mydas, it is not understood whether...

The Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus, supports a key European fishery. Stock assessments for this species are mostly based on trawling and UnderWater TeleVision (UWTV) surveys. However, N. norvegicus are burrowing organisms and these survey methods are unable to sample or observe individuals in their burrows. To account for this, UWTV surveys ge...

Our understanding of the importance of microbiomes on large aquatic animals—such as whales, sea turtles and manatees—has advanced considerably in recent years. The latest observations indicate that epibiotic diatom communities constitute diverse, polyphyletic, and compositionally stable assemblages that include both putatively obligate epizoic and...

Deep-ocean-dwelling microbes may hold keys to improved medical diagnostics and new drugs for fighting diseases. But we must search Earth’s most extreme habitats to find them.

Competition for space drives many marine propagules to colonize the external surfaces of other marine organisms, a phenomenon known as epibiosis. Epibiosis appears to be a universal phenomenon among sea turtles and an extensive body of scientific literature exists describing sea turtle-epibiont interactions. When viewed in isolation, however, these...

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...

Skin biopsies are routinely collected from sea turtles for a variety of molecular analyses; however, almost no information exists on the natural healing rates at the site of the biopsy. Here, we monitored the healing rates of 17 juvenile green turtles (Chelonia mydas) for up to 488 d after we took a 6-mm biopsy tissue sample in Eleuthera, The Baham...

Background: Our understanding of the importance of microbiomes on large aquatic animals—such as whales, sea turtles and manatees—has advanced considerably in recent years. Recent activity describing the epizoic diatoms growing on marine vertebrates suggests that these epibiotic diatom communities constitute diverse, polyphyletic, and compositionall...

Our understanding of the importance of microbiomes on large aquatic animals—such as whales, sea turtles and manatees—has advanced considerably in recent years. Recent activity describing epizoic diatoms suggests that epibiotic diatom communities constitute diverse, polyphyletic, and compositionally stable assemblages that include both putatively ob...

Here, we report on a green turtle Chelonia mydas hatchling with a dipygus deformity (a bifurcation of the body-axis at the caudal end) resulting in polymelia (additional limbs). In addition, this turtle appeared to retain full functionality of its extra limbs.

We present 4 observations of hawksbill turtles Eretmochelys imbricata found in anchialine ponds on 3 islands in The Bahamas. These ponds had no surface connection to the ocean, but they were connected by subterranean conduits that, in at least one instance, extended over 1.5 km in length. It is possible that the turtles were placed in these ponds b...

Movement is a fundamental characteristic of life, yet some invertebrate taxa, such as barnacles, permanently affix to a substratum as adults. Adult barnacles became ‘sessile’ over 500 Ma; however, we confirm that the epizoic sea turtle barnacle, Chelonibia testudinaria , has evolved the capacity for self-directed locomotion as adults. We also asses...

PLOME proposes a spatially adaptive, non-invasive, modular platform of independent and wirelessly connected benthic stations and AUVs to intelligently observe, monitor and map marine ecosystems, during long-lasting periods with real-time supervision. The proposal brings together elements that can be effectively developed with current technology, to...

Photo-identification is a non-invasive option for mark-recapture. Here, we tested the effectiveness of APHIS, a semi-automated photo-identification software, to distinguish between individual Bahamian Racers (Cubo-phis vudii vudii) on the island of Eleuthera, The Bahamas. Over 10 months, we photographed 50 Bahamian Racers. We first identified indiv...

Sea turtles, like other air-breathing diving vertebrates, commonly experience significant gas embolism (GE) when incidentally caught at depth in fishing gear and brought to the surface. To better understand why sea turtles develop GE, we built a mathematical model to estimate partial pressures of N2 (PN2), O2 (PO2), and CO2 (PCO2) in the major body...

There is very little information of the foraging ecology and parasite infections of many snake species. Here, we used opportunistically collected roadkill to assess diet and parasite prevalence in two snake species in The Bahamas, the Bahamian Racer (Cubophis vudii vudii) and the Bahamian Boa (Chilabothrus strigilatus strigilatus). Over eight month...

Point 1: Stereo-video camera systems (SVCSs) are a promising tool to remotely measure body size of wild animals without the need for animal handling. Here, we assessed the accuracy of SVCSs for measuring straight carapace length (SCL) of sea turtles. Point 2: To achieve this, we hand captured and measured 63 juvenile, subadult, and adult sea turtle...

Determining gender in snakes almost always involves highly intrusive techniques that have the potential to harm or at least significantly stress the animal. Clear morphological differences of conspecific males and females, defined as sexual dimorphism, can provide an alternative strategy to determine the sex of a snake with little harm. The commonl...

To maximise reproductive fitness, species make trade-offs among reproductive traits, e.g., offspring quantity vs. offspring size, within energetic, anatomical, and physiological constraints. Sea turtles are a model taxon to study reproductive trade-offs, because they lack parental care and because there are strong selective pressures on hatchlings...

Wildlife rehabilitation programs are widely employed for many endangered marine species and can serve as engaging platforms for environmental outreach. However, their effectiveness at supporting populations in the wild depends on whether rescued animals can survive and reproduce after being released. Here, we assessed whether cold-stunned juvenile...

Preliminary research on comparative fluid dynamics of three shark species.

The countless tranquil beaches of the Caribbean, with their gently lapping waves and fringing palm trees, give the feeling of permanence. Although you could be excused for thinking that these ecosystems—and their sea turtle inhabitants—have remained largely untouched for millennia, this is far from the truth. Sea turtles have provided the people of...

The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the predominant interannual pattern of climate variability in the world and may become extreme approximately once every 20 years. Climate-forced interannual variability in fecundity rates of long-lived species are well-studied, but the effect of extreme events is less clear. Here, we analyzed the effect of...

The State of the World's Sea Turtles Report Special Issue on Sea Turtles of the Caribbean.

Marine turtles often conduct extensive migrations from foraging to breeding habitats. Turtles may spend several months in these breeding habitats, while periodically taking brief excursions onto terrestrial environments to nest. Identification and protection of these breeding habitats over the duration of the reproductive season is therefore vital...

There is a wealth of published information on the epibiont communities of sea turtles, yet many of these studies have exclusively sampled epibionts found only on the carapace. Considering that epibionts may be found on almost all body-surfaces and that it is highly plausible to expect different regions of the body to host distinct epibiont taxa, th...

The diatom genus Proschkinia is a common element of biofilms covering diverse substrata in saline inland or shallow coastal environments. It can be distinguished from other naviculoid taxa by its lanceolate valves with a fistula located within the central area and numerous open girdle bands with a U-shaped cross-section and a single row of perforat...

Sea turtle species in the genus Lepidochelys exhibit an unusual behavioural polymorphism, nesting in both aggregations and solitarily. Aggregated nesting events, termed ‘arribadas’, involve hundreds of thousands of females congregating at a single nesting beach over a few days to oviposit their eggs. Aggregate and solitary nesting behaviours are as...

Sea turtles are migratory animals that travel from foraging grounds to specific nesting beaches every few years and that, therefore, can be influenced by oceanographic conditions in several different habitats. We assessed how sea surface temperature (SST) and chlorophyll-α (Chl-α) within both internesting and foraging areas influence the nesting ab...

There is a wealth of published information on the epibiont communities of sea turtles, yet many of these studies have exclusively sampled epibionts found only on the carapace. Considering that epibionts may be found on almost all body-surfaces and that it is highly plausible to expect different regions of the body to host distinct epibiont taxa, th...

A growing interest in the relationship between sea turtles and their epibionts (i.e., marine organisms that attach to, or dwell on the exterior shell or skin of sea turtles) resulted in a workshop focused on sea turtle epibiosis at the 37th International Sea Turtle Symposium, Las Vegas, Nevada (Pinou et al. 2017). The primary objectives of the work...

Sea turtle hatchlings are known to vocalize; however, the purpose of these vocalizations is currently unknown. One hypothesis is that these vocalizations serve to synchronize hatching or starting the emergence from the nest. To test this hypothesis, we characterized and compared the frequency and duration of the sounds made by Olive Ridley Turtles...

First sampled in the late 1990s, Campamento Tortuguero La Gloria, in Jalisco, Mexico, was resampled for olive ridley sea turtle (Lepidochyles olivacea Eschscholtz) diversity 10 years later. A comparison with all previously reported mitochondrial sequences revealed that these new samples added to the known genetic diversity for this species, and rev...