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Article: GREEN TURTLE SOMATIC GROWTH MODEL: EVIDENCE FORDENSITY DEPENDENCE.(Statistical Data Included)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Ecological Applications
- Article date:
- February 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Ecological Society of America. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Abstract. The green turtle, Chelonia mydas, is a circumglobal species and a primary herbivore in marine ecosystems. Overexploitation as a food resource for human populations has resulted in drastic declines or extinction of green turtle populations in the Greater Caribbean. Attempts to manage the remaining populations on a sustainable basis are hampered by insufficient knowledge of demographic parameters. In particular, compensatory responses resulting from density-dependent effects have not been evaluated for any sea turtle population and thus have not been explicitly included in any population models.
Growth rates of immature green turtles were measured during ...