College of Science Postgraduate Seminar Series - Spring 2014
29th May 2014 - 1pm - Zoology Museum (Wallace)
Sea, Sand, Sun, and Turtle Sex: How climate change impacts sea turtle populations, and other important questions?
Jacques Olivier-Lalöe
(PhD student, Swansea University, UK)
Jacques is a second year bioscience PhD student under the primary supervision of Graeme Hays. After studying for a BSc in Zoology at University College London, he completed a Research Masters in Ecology and Evolution at UvA (Universiteit van Amsterdam), Amsterdam. His love of turtles brought him to Swansea where he has just published his first paper, in Nature Climate Change.
In this talk I will introduce the type of research I am currently undertaking at Swansea University as part of my Ph.D. in Marine Biology. I am interested in the population dynamics of sea turtle populations. There will be two main topics that I will touch upon in this seminar:
1. A warming world poses challenges for species with temperature-dependent sex determination, including sea turtles, for which warmer incubation temperatures produce female hatchlings. In a first study I am looking at the effect of warming air temperatures on the viability of an important sea turtle population. I will present the results of this recently published study here.
2. Genetic studies advance our understanding of sea turtle population dynamics. For example, we are able to learn valuable information about population structure, evolution, migrations, and colonization events. I will give an overview of some of the main findings in this field and present a study I am currently working on.
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