Functional Diversity of Marine Organisms. Marine megafauna: marine turtles, seabirds and marine mammals

MARIANO-JELICICH, ROCIO; BERON, MARIA PAULA; COPELLO, SOFIA; DELLABIANCA, NA; GARCIA, GERMAN; LABRADA-MARTAGON, V; PASO VIOLA, MN; PAZ, JESICA ANDREA; RICCIARDELLI, L; SAN MARTIN, A; SECO PON, JUAN PABLO; TORRES, MA; FAVERO, MARCO

A Functional Approach to the Oceans and their Organisms

Science Publishers, CRC Press

Lugar: Washington; Año: 2022; p. 297 - 324

Seabirds, marine mammals and sea turtles are assembled within the Amniota clade. The term marinemegafauna is not a taxonomically defined group (Table 1) (Montero and Autino 2018), and compriselarge vertebrates strongly associated to the marine environment during the whole or a significantportion of their life-cycles. The biological features of each group are very different although manysimilarities can be found in their ecological roles and life history traits. Accordingly, seabirds, marinemammals and sea turtles are exposed to nearly the same threats. While many organisms still need tobe on land for reproduction (e.g. seabirds, sea turtles, pinnipeds), others live in the aquaticenvironment (e.g. cetaceans and sirenians). Marine megafauna is distributed all over the seas fromthe poles to the Equator and from shallow to deep waters. Oceans are heterogeneous environmentscharacterized by patchy prey distribution over space and time; hence marine vertebrates areconcentrated in areas of high prey abundance. These hot spots are the result of physical processes,such as upwellings, eddies, gyres or sea-ice edges, and biophysical interactions favouring productivityand prey concentration (Bost et al. 2009). Not only abundance can be affected by these physicaldrivers but also diversity (and species richness) which is particularly high in the Southern Ocean andthe central Pacific Ocean (Jenkins and Van Houtan 2016). This chapter aims to provide a broadoverview of the life history patterns of marine megafauna (sea turtles, seabirds and marine mammals),their functional roles in their ecosystems and conservation issues that different populations arenowadays facing.