UNC-‘Sea’-W: Advancing Turtle Conservation, Education and Outreach

Sea turtles are more than just charismatic marine creatures — they’re vital indicators of ocean health. Their migratory patterns, foraging behaviors and physiological responses offer scientists a window into the changing conditions of marine ecosystems. Graduate researchers Caroline VanDuzer and Jamie Clark are exploring sea turtle biology to gain insights into how rising temperatures affect ocean ecology.   

VanDuzer is investigating the diving physiology of juvenile Kemp’s ridley and green sea turtles, focusing on how muscle tissue influences their ability to remain submerged and migrate long distances. She is examining myoglobin, a protein which stores oxygen in muscle cells. Her research, conducted in the lab of biology and marine biology professor Amanda Southwood Williard, could pave the way for long-term monitoring of how climate change affects sea turtle physiology. 

“Since sea turtles are ectotherms, their body temperature depends on their environment. Warming oceans could impact their diving behavior. If we can measure their diving ability based on oxygen storage and use, future research can compare these metrics across time and populations to determine how global warming affects them,” explained VanDuzer, a marine biology graduate student.

Southwood Williard emphasized the broader implications of the research. “We may gain a better understanding of the physiological underpinnings of sea turtle migration and dive patterns, as well as limitations on submergence times and the potential implications of anthropogenic disruptions, like fisheries entanglement,” she said.   

Clark is tackling the challenge of determining the age of living sea turtles. In collaboration with NOAA Fisheries, her research aims to develop and validate tools to age living and stranded Kemp’s ridley, green and loggerhead turtles. She is developing two tools to improve age estimation: Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS), which shines red light and measures reflected light, and DNA Methylation (DNAm), which measures epigenetic modifications linked to aging, she said. 

“By traditionally estimating age via skeletochronology, which analyzes bone growth rings — like counting tree rings — these two techniques can be calibrated with the best available method of sea turtle age estimation through sampling the same turtle for each technique,” explained Clark, who is conducting her research in assistant professor of biology and marine biology Matthew Ramirez’s lab.    

“This research will yield methods that could accurately age living sea turtles in the wild and dead, stranded turtles faster, which will significantly advance our ability to monitor age structure and age-based demographic changes for threatened and endangered species,” she added.   

Ramirez noted that “currently, there are no practical methods to age living sea turtles, which has created an intractable problem for natural resource managers tasked with assessing their population status and trends.” 

“With these tools, we would be able to rapidly assess sea turtle age and population structure in living populations, monitor age-specific responses to various human activities and build more robust population models for predicting population responses to stressors and management action,” he said.   

More than 16 undergraduate students and a post-baccalaureate researcher have assisted with skeletochronology in Ramirez’s lab.    

"My goal is to look optimistically toward the future. Despite the challenges we face, I believe we can overcome them through scientific innovation, collaboration and advocacy.” 

–Jamie Clark

VanDuzer and Clark have received support from the Holden Beach Turtle Watch. Both are recipients of the Judith C. Bryan Holden Beach Turtle Watch Fellowship in Marine Biology, which supports students dedicated to sea turtle research. The program provides funding for living expenses, books and tuition. Pat Cusack, project coordinator, expressed excitement about their work. 

“Since Caroline and Jamie are both doing research on loggerhead turtles, we hope their studies will give us more understanding about the species,” said Cusack. “We also look forward to any information that will give us increased viability of the species, and how to determine age of the turtle while it is alive.” 

The Holden Beach Turtle Watch program believes educational partnerships are key to advancing conservation, said John Cifelli, president.   

“Each year, we receive ways to adapt our management of sea turtle nests based on current research,” he said. “Our mission is not just to monitor and protect sea turtles, but to educate the public about how to help our turtles thrive on Holden Beach. When we support students researching marine life, we gain insights we can share with our tourists and residents.” 

VanDuzer and Clark’s passion for sea turtles goes far beyond the lab. They spent their summer making a real-world impact on conservation and education.   

VanDuzer took on the role of graduate project coordinator for the Figure Eight Nesting Surveys, a program run by the Figure Eight Homeowners Association Inc. Her work involved data collection on nest inventories, tracking hatched and unhatched eggs and documenting live and deceased hatchlings found during nest excavations conducted approximately three days after emergence. In addition to her research duties, VanDuzer coordinated daily morning patrols with a team of five undergraduate students, ensuring smooth operations and consistent monitoring of nesting activity.   

Clark conducted marine science outreach through UNCW’s MarineQuest program. She volunteered at the Center for Marine Science, helping care for educational animals, and played a key role in leading youth programs. Clark co-led a two-day OCEANS17 workshop alongside Ramirez, where rising high school seniors engaged in hands-on sea turtle aging activities, including necropsies, flipper dissections and histological techniques like bone sectioning, staining and imaging. She also led two OCEANS15 programs, guiding students through fish dissections and food web explorations using stable isotopes to uncover insights into fish biology and ecology with other students from the Ramirez Lab. 

As ocean temperatures continue to rise, the work of VanDuzer and Clark could lead to discoveries that inform conservation strategies and improve marine ecosystem health.