By Paul Homewood
Give us the money, or the turtles will get it!
A new study reveals rising temperatures are turning green turtle populations almost completely female in the northern Great Barrier Reef.
More than 200,000 nesting females—one of the largest populations in the world—call the northern Great Barrier Reef home. But this population could eventually crash without more males, according to the study published in Current Biology
How does climate change impact sex?
Because incubation temperature of turtle eggs determines the animal’s sex, a warmer nest results in more females. Increasing temperatures in Queensland’s north, linked to climate change, have led to virtually no male northern green sea turtles being born.
For the study, scientists caught green turtles at the Howick Group of islands where both northern and southern green turtle populations forage in the Great Barrier Reef. Using a combination of endocrinology and genetic tests, researchers identified the…
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