Broward County, Florida is a popular tourism destination. Due to its popularity, much of the shoreline has been modified and natural habitats were replaced with infrastructure such as houses, condominiums, resorts, and restaurants. The same Broward County beaches utilized by tourists and residents are important for three species of nesting sea turtles, including the Leatherback, Dermochelys coriacea, Loggerhead, Caretta caretta, and Green, Chelonia mydas, Turtles. The Broward County Sea Turtle Conservation Program (BCSTCP) collects yearly data in order to study these endangered reptiles. Increased anthropogenic effects including further coastal development (public & private), public beach events, public beach access, as well as natural events, have caused these important nesting beaches to erode and narrow. In an effort to control this erosion damage, Broward County has performed a number of beach nourishment projects. This study found yearly fluctuations in sea turtle hatching and emergence success rates, and years of beach nourishment projects significantly decreased these rates. Yearly hatching data available from Broward County concludes that beach nourishment, as well as hurricanes and tropical storms cause decreases in sea turtle hatching and emergence success rates in Broward County. Additionally, nest depth and sea turtle size increases the hatching and emergence success rates from females that are not too large or too small that nest in Broward County.

Sea turtles face many threats to their populations globally. Loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) and green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) are listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List as Endangered. In Florida, loggerhead and green sea turtles nest along the coastline during April-September. Mechanical beach cleaning is an aesthetic service performed daily on some beaches in Florida to clean the wrack line and/or the entire beach of debris. Alterations made to beaches by methods such as mechanical beach cleaning have the potential to impact sea turtle nesting, hatching, and emergence success. Generalized linear mixed models were performed to investigate the impacts of mechanical beach cleaning on nesting, hatching and emergence success of loggerhead and green turtles from 1997-2015 in Broward County, Florida. The results showed mechanical beach cleaning had an effect on nesting success, however, hatching and emergence success were not affected by mechanical beach cleaning. These results indicate that mechanical beach cleaning cannot solely be used to determine sea turtle management or conservation guidelines in Broward County.

<p dir="ltr">The Leatherback Sea Turtle (<i>Dermochelys coriacea</i>) is a globally vulnerable species suffering from declining populations due to anthropogenic pressures. There are seven recognized Leatherback Sea Turtle regional management units; however, the Southeast Atlantic unit is considered data deficient. Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea, is a primary nesting rookery for the Southeast Atlantic regional management unit and has some of the world’s highest numbers of nesting Leatherback Sea Turtles. Despite Bioko Island’s importance to the species, little is known about the nesting ecology or post-nesting migratory movement and behaviors of its nesting Leatherback Sea Turtles. Here, I present the findings of two individual research projects on the nesting ecology of Leatherback Sea Turtles on Bioko Island. First, I explored the long-term clutch success rates (i.e., hatching success and emergence success) of <i>in situ</i> Leatherback Sea Turtle nests on Bioko and searched for associated variables. I found significant spatiotemporal variation over nine nesting seasons, likely driven by individual beach characteristics rather than regional climate patterns. Secondly, I described a novel effort to use solar-reliant towable transmitters to track the post-nesting migratory movements and behaviors of Leatherback Sea Turtles nesting on Bioko Island. With the results from each project, I make recommendations to further the current conservation and research initiatives of Leatherback Sea Turtles.</p>