How Hot is Too Hot for Our Marine Turtles?

Marine turtles are considered "keystone or indicator" species, which clearly indicates the current environmental condition of the oceans. They serve as an "umbrella" species for conservation because of their complex life cycle, which depends on the protection of numerous habitats and interconnected ecosystems. But, in recent times, marine turtle numbers have been rapidly declining. Of the 7 species, 6 are classified between vulnerable and endangered. A large part of these declines have been brought about by human causes. One such example is climate change. Over the past 100 years, a warming of 0.6-0.9˚C has been experienced worldwide. Cold-blooded organisms, such as marine turtles, are extremely sensitive to this temperature change. The sex of marine turtles is determined by the temperature that the eggs are exposed to in their nests. Higher temperatures produce a higher percentage of females while lower temperatures produce more males. Climate change is increasing the temperatures that eggs are exposed to, therefore skewing hatchling sex ratios, with more females being produced. However, to avoid this, marine turtles are migrating towards the cooler places to lay the eggs, such as beaches to the western part of Mediterranean and to the north in the Adriatic cost. In Albania, the first official nest was recorded in 2018 and since there, almost every year there have been sporadic nesting activity of loggerheads with several attempts and nest recorded. We believe that in the future the Adriatic will be a new significant nesting habitat for the loggerhead turtles due to climate change, since it provides cooler sandy beaches for the turtles to lay the eggs and for more male hatchlings to be born. Therefore, it is imperative to continue and reinforce the monitoring campaigns to protect and conserve the pristine coastal environment of Albania for the future expansion of nesting activity by marine turtles.