Fong Chia-Ling, Hoh Daphne Z, Su Huai, Chen Peng-Yu, Tsai Chia-Chen, Tseng Kelly W H, Huang Hao-Chih, Wu Jun-Yi, Nozawa Yoko, Chan Benny K K
Biodiversity Program, Taiwan International Graduate Program Program, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
Department of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
BMC Ecol Evol. 2025 Mar 24;25(1):27. doi: 10.1186/s12862-025-02354-2.
Determining sea turtle foraging grounds, emerging threats, and population status are essential for conservation management. Crowdsourced science is a recently recognized approach that enables internet-based data collection, providing important contributions to scientific goals while also benefiting society and public education. This study is based on the published dataset from TurtleSpot Taiwan (2017-2022) with the aim to leverage crowdsourced data to determine sea turtle foraging grounds, emerging threats, demography, and residency patterns in Taiwan.
We identified three green turtle (Chelonia mydas) foraging grounds in Taiwan (Liuqiu Island, Kenting, and Green Island), defined as sites with > 100 sightings and > 50 individuals. Among all sites, Liuqiu Island contributed 77% of the total sightings, suggesting this island is a hotspot. Emerging threats to foraging aggregations of sea turtles in Taiwan were evident from the reported sightings, with ~ 10% of the total sightings involving turtles with fishing line entanglement, ingested debris, missing flippers, or injuries. Most of these sightings occurred in Liuqiu Island, indicating a significant level of human-turtle disturbance. Residency patterns identified from sighting data showed that 43.4% of individuals stayed in the same area for one or more years, with adult-sized turtle residency greater than that of immature turtles.
Taiwan supports healthy foraging grounds for green turtles, where adults often stay for more than one year and with dynamic populations of younger individuals. However, despite a certain number of foraging green turtles observed in Liuqiu Island, many of these turtles displayed injuries. This high population density combined with increased injury frequency suggests that a comprehensive management plan for turtle foraging grounds is urgently needed, including measures to reduce boat speeds in hotspot areas and strict regulations on coastal human activity.
确定海龟觅食地、新出现的威胁以及种群状况对于保护管理至关重要。众包科学是一种最近才被认可的方法，它能够基于互联网进行数据收集，为科学目标做出重要贡献，同时也造福社会和公众教育。本研究基于台湾海龟观察（2017 - 2022年）发布的数据集，旨在利用众包数据确定台湾的海龟觅食地、新出现的威胁、种群统计学特征以及栖息模式。
我们在台湾确定了三个绿海龟（蠵龟）觅食地（琉球岛、垦丁和绿岛），定义为目击次数超过100次且个体数量超过50只的地点。在所有地点中，琉球岛的目击次数占总目击次数的77%，表明该岛是一个热点地区。从报告的目击情况来看，台湾海龟觅食聚集地面临的新威胁很明显，约10%的总目击次数涉及被钓线缠住、摄入杂物、鳍肢缺失或受伤的海龟。这些目击事件大多发生在琉球岛，表明存在显著程度的人龟干扰。从目击数据确定的栖息模式显示，43.4%的个体在同一地区停留了一年或更长时间，成年海龟的栖息时间长于未成年海龟。
台湾为绿海龟提供了健康的觅食地，成年绿海龟经常在那里停留一年以上，且有动态变化的年轻个体种群。然而，尽管在琉球岛观察到一定数量的觅食绿海龟，但其中许多海龟都有受伤情况。这种高种群密度加上受伤频率增加表明，迫切需要制定一项针对海龟觅食地的全面管理计划，包括在热点地区降低船只速度的措施以及对沿海人类活动的严格监管。
