Mixed stock analysis identifies natal origins of green turtles at foraging grounds in southeastern Australia

1 Introduction

Seasonal migrations between geographically distant breeding and non-breeding grounds are common for threatened marine animals including turtles (Hays, 2008), whales (Mate et al., 2015), seabirds (Pinet et al., 2011), and sharks (Werry et al., 2014). These migratory behaviors can be complex, varying spatiotemporally and by sex and age (Druskat et al., 2019; Blevins et al., 2022). Despite the challenges of tracking migratory species, animal movement data are critical to our understanding of the species’ spatial ecology, population structure, vulnerability to anthropogenic threats and ability to adapt to environmental change (Block et al., 2005; McCauley et al., 2015; Paiva et al., 2015). Changes in ocean…

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