Written by: Gabby Carvajal. April 2022
FAU Marine Lab faculty and graduate students attended the virtual 40th International Sea Turtle Symposium (ISTS40) earlier this month. ISTS40 was a four-day global event hosted entirely online from March 25 th - 28 th . This symposium engaged the global sea turtle community to share knowledge, build capacity, network, collaborate, and ultimately, to promote the protection and conservation of sea turtles.
Heather Seaman in Dr. Sarah Milton’s lab gave a great talk on the impacts of nest temperatures on leatherback sea turtle hatchling performance and morphology. Samantha Trail also gave a talk on her master’s thesis research completed under the tutelage of Dr. Michael Salmon. Her research looked at the differences in visual perception and seafinding behavior between leatherback and loggerhead hatchlings. Samantha Trail won the Archie Carr Student Award for Best Biology Oral Presentation in recognition of excellence in graduate student research. Samantha is currently a PhD student in Dr. Jeanette Wyneken’s lab, and we can't wait to see her success in her future research endeavors.
In addition to talks, there were also poster sessions where researchers could share their work. The FAU Marine Lab was well represented! Abigail Chaney, from Dr. Sarah Milton’s lab, presented her master’s research on the physiological effects of sargassum on loggerhead, green, and leatherback hatchlings at South Florida beaches. Ivanna Serra, from Dr. Jeanette Wyneken’s lab presented her preliminary PhD work on the biomechanics of sea turtle shells. Samantha Trail presented on another aspect of her master’s work detailing the experimental analysis of wavelength preferences shown by leatherback sea turtle hatchlings. Emily Turla, a PhD student in Dr. Jeanette Wyneken’s lab and assistant lab coordinator of the FAU Marine Lab, was runner-up for the Archie Carr Student Award for Best Biology Poster. Emily’s poster addressed the relationship between green and loggerhead sea turtle sex and growth rates while being raised at the lab.
Our Glenn W. & Cornelia T. Bailey Marine SEA Scholars Postdoctoral Fellow Sean Williamson presented a poster providing an overview of a workshop with recommendations on whether in situ conservation should be implemented to prevent the extinction of the eastern pacific leatherback. Dr. Jeanette Wyneken, Director of the FAU Marine Lab and Dr. Michael Salmon, Marine Lab Principal Investigator, presented a poster on the relationship between basic and applied science and how it enhances sea turtle conservation.
All in all it was a fantastic showing from all FAU students and faculty at the first annual ISTS meeting since 2019. We were happy to be back!
