"Going with the flow" or not: Evidence of positive rheotaxis in oceanic juvenile loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) in the South Pacific Ocean using satellite tags and ocean circulation data

Abstract

The movement of juvenile loggerhead turtles (n = 42) out-fitted with satellite tags and released in oceanic waters off New Caledonia was examined and compared with ocean circulation data. Merging of the daily turtle movement data with drifter buoy movements, OSCAR (Ocean Surface Current Analyses - Real time) circulation data, and three different vertical strata (0-5 m, 0-40 m, 0-100 m) of HYCOM (HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model) circulation data indicated the turtles were swimming against the prevailing current in a statistically significant pattern. This was not an artifact of prevailing directions of current and swimming, nor was it an artifact of frictional slippage. Generalized additive modeling was used to decompose the pattern of swimming into spatial and temporal components. The findings are indicative of a positive rheotaxis whereby an organism is able to detect the current flow and orient itself to swim into the current flow direction or otherwise slow down its movement. Potential mechanisms for the means and adaptive significance of rheotaxis in oceanic juvenile loggerhead turtles are discussed.