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Green Sea Turtles Experiencing Abundant Nesting Season

GretelW
/
Wikimedia Commons
A female green sea turtle nests at Shark Bay, Heron Island.

While nesting numbers of endangered green sea turtles in Florida can vary from year to year, the broader trend over the past few decades shows a marked increase in the animal’s population.  

 

So, what’s behind this positive population trend? That’s just one of the questions researchers with the University of Central Florida’s Marine Turtle Research Group are looking to shed light on through a new project intended to provide an update on green sea turtles’ genetic data through the use of new genomic-scale techniques.  

Joining Gulf Coast Live is Gustavo Stahelin, a graduate student working with the Marine Turtle Research Group and a doctoral candidate with the University of Central Florida’s Department of Biology, and Dr. Eric Hoffman, a UCF biologist, genetics researcher and professor who is teaming up for this new genetics research project.

Rachel Iacovone is a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast Live for WGCU News. Rachel came to WGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.Rachel was first contacted by WGCU when she was managing editor of FGCU's student-run media group, Eagle News. She helped take Eagle News from a weekly newspaper to a daily online publication with TV and radio branches within two years, winning the 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for Best Use of Multimedia in a cross-platform series she led for National Coming Out Day. She also won the Mark of Excellence Award for Feature Writing for her five-month coverage of an FGCU student's transition from male to female.As a WGCU reporter, she produced the first radio story in WGCU's Curious Gulf Coast project, which answered the question: Does SWFL Have More Cases of Pediatric Cancer?Rachel graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.