FAU researcher has spent 24 years monitoring sea turtle nest temperatures and warns that rising beach heat is producing nearly all-female hatchling cohorts. (Image credit: FAU)
In the laboratory of Jeanette Wyneken, Ph.D., professor of biological sciences and Director of FAU’s Marine Science Laboratory within the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, she raises hatchlings from local nests to identify the sex ratio. So far, every sea turtle currently being raised and studied is female. While female-biased sex ratios are normal for sea turtles, which develop as males or females depending on the temperature at which their eggs incubate, Wyneken is seeing an increasingly troubling pattern.
For more than two decades of monitoring hatchlings and documenting nest temperatures, she has observed repeated years with no males or only a tiny fraction of males among the turtles examined…