Hosted by the Brevard County Parks and Recreation Department’s Environmentally Endangered Lands (EEL) Program, in cooperation with the Sea Turtle Conservancy, the ceremony took place in the sanctuary’s visitor center and featured the unveiling of a new roadside sign bearing Ehrhart’s name, followed by a reception celebrating his life’s work and lasting impact on marine wildlife and habitat conservation.

Surrounded by the coastal landscapes overlooking the sandy beaches of Melbourne, Florida, Ehrhart’s family, friends, former students, local officials and community members gathered to pay tribute and celebrate his enduring legacy.

Raymond Mojica Jr., land management superintendent for the EEL program, opened the ceremony describing Ehrhart as a true ecologist whose extensive research was pivotal to establishing of the ACNWR and the newly renamed Doc Ehrhart Sanctuary.

“Ehrhart was a full-fledged ecologist and the decision to honor him was made so that people could learn about his life and contributions over the years,” Mojica says. “His work gathering long-term data sets on sea turtle ecology is rare in the natural history world — and that’s how good decisions are made. Anyone can take a single snapshot of what plants and animals are in place, but to do that over the long term is rare and should be celebrated.”

For more than 50 years, Ehrhart advanced scientific understanding of sea turtle ecology and the coastal ecosystems of Brevard County. His research helped secure permanent nesting grounds along the refuge, now recognized as one of the most important nesting sites for loggerhead sea turtles in the Western Hemisphere and for threatened green sea turtles in North America.

One of Ehrhart’s most significant conservation successes, made possible through the data he gathered, was helping the green sea turtle populations recover.

“The recovery of green turtle nesting in this refuge is one of those rare conservation stories,” Mojica says. “When these surveys first started, they were only finding a few dozen nests a year. For various reasons, the numbers were low. Now, we’re seeing more than 20,000 nests a year. In 40 years, the population has recovered significantly and that’s something worth honoring and sharing with the public.”

Blair Witherington, a research scientist with Inwater Research Group and a former student of Ehrhart, served as the event’s emcee. He discussed Ehrhart’s research and his influence on others.

“Today, we’re honoring an influential man. He mentored so many of us and inspired countless others who never met him,” Witherington says. “This refuge, and what it represents today, is the result of his work and dedication to stewardship.”

The sanctuary’s visitor center showcased educational exhibits on sea turtle ecology and coastal ecosystems, along with a display of his memorabilia prepared for the day of the event.

Early in Ehrhart’s career, the importance of this nesting beach wasn’t fully understood. But after years of diligent surveying by Ehrhart and his students, its value and the critical need to preserve it became clear.

“Day after day, year after year, Ehrhart and his students ran along the beach at Archie Carr, tallying nesting turtles,” Witherington says. “Over time, those numbers revealed just how extraordinary this site is. It’s the Mount Everest of sea turtle nesting beaches — and we only know that because of diligent, long-term data collection that may seem mundane but, cumulatively, is absolutely instrumental for conservation efforts.”

Ehrhart’s passion extended beyond sea turtles. He was also deeply interested in small mammals and dedicated to sharing his love of wildlife with others.

“Doc firmly believed people care about what they understand,” says Ashley Ehrhart, his daughter, who also spoke at the ceremony. “He brought school kids, college students and political leaders to see and experience the sea turtles and wildlife here. He inspired people to protect natural spaces and species — and some even went on to work in conservation and became his colleagues.”

An important part of Ehrhart’s legacy, the sea turtle nesting surveys, continues under the supervision of , professor of biology at UCF and director of the .

“Ehrhart would have been thrilled with this honor. He loved the barrier island deeply. While he ended his career as a sea turtle biologist, he began studying small mammals — so he always saw the bigger picture beyond just the beach,” Mansfield says. “I’m excited to share the connection between Doc, our lab, and this coastal landscape with future graduate students and interns. I hope it inspires the next generation of conservation biologists and shows that conservation efforts can succeed.”

The sanctuary that now bears his name is a tribute to Ehrhart’s impact and Witherington shares that it will inspire future generations to connect with this landscape he helped protect.

“I’m always eager to tell Doc Ehrhart’s story, not just to honor his memory, but because it shows how one person can shape history and this place,” Witherington says.

The relationship between these magnetic bacteria and the animals they reside in is not yet fully understood, but Assistant Professor Robert Fitak recently compiled a database of animal DNA that houses hundreds of millions of sequences showing the presence of various types of magnetic bacteria to use as a tool in his pursuit to learn more.

The database signals a step forward in his research and builds off previous hypotheses and analyses published in 2020 in collaboration with colleagues in the United Kingdom and Israel.

In 2021, Fitak continued poring through databases to categorize which animals may host magnetic bacteria and if there are prevalent patterns.

“The first study we did was look at existing datasets and summarize where we found this bacteria in different animals,” he says. “We searched about 50,000 previous scientific studies. Now, we actually expanded that to studying a worldwide database of genetic information and we’ve been able to summarize where these bacteria are located based on trillions of genetic sequences.”

The database was published earlier this year in Data in Brief, and it borrows information from the publicly available Sequence Read Archive from the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Fitak focused on organizing DNA sequences originating from across animal species that match known magnetic bacteria to assist he and other researchers to narrow their efforts in examination of both environmental and ecological roles of magnetic bacteria or to identify potential host animals.

An Internal Compass?

Fitak and his colleagues are using the refined data to identify potential host organisms for the magnetic bacteria and to provide greater context for examining the roles they may play in animals – such as for navigation.

“Ultimately, if we have a better understanding of how animals navigate, it’ll be useful for conserving endangered or protected species,” Fitak says. “If we know where they’re going to move and how, it can help us make more accurate management decisions.”

He is interested in seeing if the magnetic bacteria reside in regions within an animal so they may sense them, such as parts of the nervous system. Fitak thinks they could serve as a navigational aid for animals or provide an additional boost for creatures like birds or sea turtles already using the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate long distances.

“It’s almost like a microbial compass and we’re studying how that could work,” Fitak says. “We think the animals already use the Earth’s magnetic field like a compass.”

He also says another potential benefit is that scientists may study how animals sense the magnetic fields and potentially mimic how they’re used in a variety of applications such as drug delivery.

However, there is no conclusive evidence that these animals are using the magnetic bacteria to navigate or not, Fitak says.

“The big summary we have so far from our research is that we don’t yet know that these bacteria are sensing the bacteria for the animal, but we do have evidence that they are living in these animals,” he says. “But what we’ve learned is we can use genetic tags that are signatures for bacteria that makes magnets, and we’ve identified these genetic signatures of these bacteria inside various animals – including humans.”

These kinds of bacteria often live in sediments or muds where there isn’t a lot of oxygen, Fitak says. They assemble microscopic and magnetized iron “chains” to assist in their movement, he says.

It is uncertain how organisms end up with these bacteria inside of them, but it is theorized perhaps through absorption or consumption, Fitak says.

“To date, our results across projects show that these magnetic bacteria seem to be a regular component of many species microbiomes,” he says. “Hopefully our future work will show whether they are just incidentally gathered from the environment, a functional component of magnetic sensing for a host animal, or for some other unknown reason.”

Focusing on Sea Turtles

Fitak and his team of student researchers are focused on examining samples from green and loggerhead sea turtles to further study magnetic bacteria.

“Sea turtles are kind of a model of animal navigation,” he says. “We’ve been testing our hypotheses in sea turtles since they travel to very specific places very accurately.”

Focusing on sea turtles was a natural next step since they are known to possess magnetic bacteria and they rely on the Earth’s magnetic field to migrate, Fitak says. has also been instrumental in obtaining samples of turtles, he says.

Julianna Martin, a Ph.D. student working with Fitak, has helped analyze and collect the nearly 150 sea turtle samples.

“I work in the lab to extract the DNA from the samples and use genomics to identify what bacteria are in the samples and which are the magnet making ones we’re looking for,” she says. “I couldn’t collect the samples without the help of the UCF Marine Turtle Research Group. It’s been a team effort.”

Martin and scientists with UCF’s Marine Turtle Research Group gently collect tear samples with soft swabs from nesting females – who enter an almost trance-like state when laying eggs – and juveniles in the Indian River lagoon.

The turtles produce large goopy tears when they are on land to keep their eyes moist, and collecting them takes around 30 seconds, Martin says.

“We started with the tear ducts because they’re associated with nerves that are associated potentially with animals’ magnetic sense,” she says. “It makes sense biologically to look there and it’s easy to collect sea turtle tears.”

Martin says she is pleased with their progress thus far but is hoping their momentum propels their research toward more definitive conclusions.

“This research has been really exciting,” she says. “No one had been looking for them specifically in sea turtles. I’m interested in knowing where they came from and what species of magnet-making bacteria each sea turtle species has. It’s a long way away but for now we’re working on describing, ‘are they there?’ and ‘where do they come from?’”

The potential to share the unique discovery of magnetic bacteria aiding animals in navigation is truly wondrous, Fitak says.

“What’s been exciting is just being able to tell people that there are bacteria that exist in this world that make magnets,” he says. “People are awestruck, and it would be incredible if animals were indeed using these magnetic bacteria to navigate.”

Fitak encourages researchers interested in studying magnetic bacteria to .

All sea turtle samples were collected under UCF MTRG protected species permits (MTP-231, MTP-171, and NMFS 26268)

Researcher’s Credentials

Fitak is an assistant professor in UCF’s Department of Biology in the College of Sciences. He received his doctorate in genetics from the University of Arizona and his bachelor’s in molecular genetics from The Ohio State University. Before joining Ů��AV in 2019, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Population Genetics in Vienna, Austria, and at Duke University. He is a member of UCF’s Genomics and Bioinformatics research cluster.

Martin is a UCF biology Ph.D. student who aspires to continue her genetic research at the university. She earned her bachelor’s degree at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and worked at the American Genome Center at the Uniformed Services University.

The visit showcased the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge and its successful sea turtle conservation efforts.

Since the refuge’s establishment as a conservation area in 1991, due in large part to sea turtle nesting data collected by UCF’s , sea turtle nesting numbers in the area have rebounded.

The 13-mile area of the Carr Refuge surveyed by UCF’s Marine Turtle Research Group now hosts about one-third of all green turtle nesting in Florida, while also hosting about 12% of Florida’s loggerhead nests.

Green sea turtle nesting on the beach rose from tens to hundreds of nests in the 1980s to the thousands by the mid-2010s. The area of the refuge monitored by UCF now averages about 9,000 green sea turtle nests each year, with some years approaching 16,000 nests.

Because of this success, the green turtle’s North Atlantic population was downlisted under the Endangered Species Act from endangered to threatened in 2016.

“This year we are experiencing what seems to be record-breaking green turtle nesting throughout the state, with a large proportion of nests on beaches monitored by UCF,” says Erin Seney, an associate research scientist with the group.

The Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973 to provide protection to endangered and threatened plants and animals. Green sea turtles and loggerheads were added to the list in 1978.

“The green turtle was heavily exploited for its meat, and local populations were likely small decades before the ESA went into effect,” she says. “The nest numbers we now see on the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge and elsewhere highlight the importance of conservation efforts that have occurred both in the water and on land, including protection of the coastline within the refuge. While the Carr Refuge’s beaches were protected with loggerheads in mind, they have since also become a highly important nesting area for green turtles.”

From 1982 to the present, UCF’s Marine Turtle Research Group has continued to collect data within the northern 13 miles of the refuge.

“Sea turtles are long-lived and very late maturing animals” says UCF Marine Turtle Research Group Director , an associate professor in UCF’s .

“These animals won’t mature until at least age 25 to 35, so it takes decades before they are able to reproduce and contribute back to their populations,” Mansfield says. “This means that hatchlings emerging from nests laid on the Carr Refuge in the 1990s may only now be returning to these natal beaches as adults to breed. We need decades of data in order to effectively conserve these species.”

Seney says their long-term dataset has shown variable but generally high nesting for loggerheads, modest but generally increasing leatherback nesting, and large growth in green turtle nesting.

About the Visit

The guests to the refuge included USFWS Director Martha Williams; USFWS Deputy Director of Operations Wendi Weber; NOAA Fisheries Director, Office of Protected Resources, Kim Damon-Randall; and NOAA Deputy Assistant Administrator for Operations (Acting) James Landon.

The Marine Turtle Research Group — including students Katie Martin and Tiffany Dawson —  and USFWS worked together to host the guests that included members of NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, the National Wildlife Refuge System, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Brevard County and Indian River County. Three of the officials who lead federal and regional sea turtle programs were also UCF alums who had been members of the Marine Turtle Research Group as master’s students.

Guests were taken on a permitted nighttime sea turtle walk to observe nesting sea turtles and UCF’s ongoing nighttime research.

The turtles did not disappoint, as the group experienced the Carr Refuge during the peak of the loggerhead season and during a busy green turtle year.

Walking a short distance from a beach access, the group observed the UCF Marine Turtle Research Group measure and tag several turtles as part of the long-term research efforts by the lab.

The guests then met back up on the beach at sunrise to view the many loggerhead and green sea turtle tracks, or crawls, left on the beach the night before and learn how UCF researchers survey the beach and mark nests to later monitor for signs of hatching.

For the sunrise event, they also heard from UCF biology master’s student Merope Moonstone and UCF biology undergraduate intern Katie Johnsen about their efforts to protect sea turtles, including Moonstone’s research examining seasonal and climatic effects on sea turtle incubation duration and reproductive success.

An added bonus was the discovery of a loggerhead nest emergence, sometimes called a “boil,” just as the group was parting ways.

“It was a privilege to visit the incredible Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, one of the most important sea turtle nesting sites in the Western Hemisphere,” says Kim Damon-Randall, director of the Office of Protected Resources at NOAA Fisheries.

“The recovery story for green turtles nesting in the refuge is inspiring — nesting in the state of Florida increased from around 4,000 nests in the 1980s to more than 230,000 in the 2010s,” she says. “The tremendous partnership between NOAA Fisheries, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Ů��AV, local governments (including Brevard County and Indian River County), and others is critical to protect loggerhead, green, and leatherback sea turtles and their habitat. The Endangered Species Act provides an important framework to help us achieve our conservation and recovery goals. There is more work to do, but the 50th anniversary of the ESA is an inspiring milestone and an opportunity to reflect on conservation progress including green sea turtle recovery efforts.”

Mansfield says that as the Endangered Species Act moves into the next 50 years, it is important to remember that some species, like sea turtles, may take decades or centuries to recover and that short-term recoveries like what is seen now with green turtles need to be nurtured over decades, not just years.

“Sea turtle research and conservation is slow science,” she says. “We need generations or decades of monitoring to ensure that the conservation successes stick. The Endangered Species Act helps ensure that sea turtles will be around for our, and their, next generations.”

About UCF’s Marine Turtle Research Group

UCF began consistently monitoring the Brevard County “South Beaches” throughout the main sea turtle nesting season in 1982 under the leadership of the late Llewellyn Ehrhart, more commonly referred to as “Doc.”

The data collected by UCF on loggerhead turtle nesting showed that it was an area with high-density nesting and demonstrated that it was an area worthy of protection for this ESA-listed species, as well as nesting habitat for smaller numbers of endangered green turtles and leatherbacks.

In tandem with their ongoing, long-term nesting beach monitoring, the UCF Marine Turtle Research Group has also had a consistently operating, in-water research and monitoring program in the Indian River Lagoon since 1982, which has given them a better understanding of local inshore populations of sea turtles, which are primarily juvenile green turtles.

Long-term, in-water datasets are especially difficult to maintain for sea turtles, and the UCF lab is able to provide a “snapshot” of populations about 10 to 15 years before most of the turtles would mature and return to the beach as adults, as well as information on health, growth, genetics and diet.

Mansfield pioneered methods to satellite track the youngest and most mysterious ages of sea turtles, the sea turtle “lost years.” Her early work helped inform the National Marine Fisheries Service managers when establishing critical habitat for loggerhead turtles under the Endangered Species Act.

Sargassum, a floating algae found offshore, is a critical nursery habitat for young turtles and this was the largest designation of critical habitat to date. The lab’s work has helped the researchers determine where green sea turtles may go during their “lost years,” and data collected by the lab on wild-caught “lost years” turtles in the Gulf of Mexico are contributing to the designation of critical habitat for green turtles under the Endangered Species Act.

The UCF Marine Turtle Research Group is unique in that it studies sea turtles in the wild throughout their long lives. The lab has provided hands-on graduate training and internships for hundreds of UCF students throughout its history. Alumni have gone on to a variety of careers, including generations of scientists who have run, or currently run, sea turtle programs at the national and state level and many more who use their past sea turtle experiences to educate others and contribute other types of environmental and conservation work.

Ehrhart, familiarly known as “Doc” or “Llew,” had campus ties dating back to the early days of Florida Technological University. The founder of the Marine Turtle Research Group (MTRG) died at home in Oviedo, Florida on March 3, 2022. He was 79.

Ehrhart was a pioneer in the world of conservation biology and one of the first advocates for historical, long-term research into marine turtles. His work found that female turtles return to the same nesting grounds and was instrumental in protecting those shorelines by establishing areas like the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge. Born on Earth Day, April 22, the conservationist was also honored as UCF Arboretum’s inaugural Earth Day Conservation Hero last year.

His secret ingredient was the “gift of gab,” a seemingly endless source of stories buoyed by unbridled enthusiasm for biology.

“Conservation requires stories. Stories engage people and help them relate to things a little better,” says Associate Professor Kate Mansfield current MTRG director. “And there was no better storyteller than Llew.”

Among those who knew him the longest was Biology Professor Emeritus Jack Stout, who first met Ehrhart when he served on Stout’s hiring committee at UCF.  Ar that point, Ehrhart and Stout were both still studying the ecology of small mammals. While the pair were still figuring out how to divide their research, Ehrhart was introduced to sea turtles by the refuge manager for the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Ehrhart’s early exploration into a largely untapped area of research received a boost from the late University of Florida Professor and renowned herpetologist Archie Carr, a longtime friend and mentor. Carr showed him the fundamentals like how to tag turtles and offered encouragement, but otherwise it was Ehrhart on his own figuring out how to do the research.

Small federal and county grants kept the project afloat (barely), along with graduate students willing to put in the sweat equity to make the research possible. Ehrhart’s passion and conviction provided the rest.

“He was very gifted in showing his enthusiasm and showing real data,” Stout says. “He could make it into talking points that were compelling to everyone — from teenagers to seasoned politicians.”

Associate Research Scientist Erin Seney was among those who met him for the first time after his retirement in 2004. What stands out in her mind about Ehrhart was his recruitment ability.

“(Field work) is challenging beyond belief,” Seney says. “It’s not for everyone. But he found a way to get people excited. He came to it with the mind that anyone out there can do it.”

Pictures fail to completely capture the size of sea turtles and the corresponding strain working with them puts on your back. Field work also brings long hot days on the water, slapping bugs and frustrating setbacks. That can make it hard to find volunteers and, more importantly, volunteers willing to return.

Ehrhart kept them encouraged in the field with his relentless optimism. Even on days when the team only managed to study one turtle, he would quip, “Well, it’s better than zero.”

What Mansfield says she will miss the most is the infectious enthusiasm Ehrhart brought to field research. A member of the last generation of true naturalists, Ehrhart could easily point out different species from a boat and name all types of facts about them.

“He made it really fun,” Mansfield says. “He clearly enjoyed doing everything out there (in the field). I’m going to really miss introducing him to the lab and the interns. That is what hit me the hardest.”

Ehrhart’s global reputation grew as he uncovered just how dire the situation was for green turtles. Small changes made a big difference, like his education efforts that led Brevard County officials to establish   Florida’s first county ordinances to limit beach lighting during nesting season. He spoke to anyone who would listen, including Lavar Burton on .

Ever humble, though, Ehrhart was an “approachable and curious person,” who always took the time to listen and learn from everyone, Seney says.

The only time he was not approachable was when he was chowing down on “weird snacks, like Vienna sausages,” Seney says with a laugh.

Even after Ehrhart left the classroom he remained an active figure in the MTRG for many more years. He remained in close contact with his former students and loved to track their successes.

“He would get this twinkle in his eye any time students came up,” says Pegasus Professor Linda Walters. “They were a very big part of what he considered his success story.”

Walters was not only a fellow biologist, but a close neighbor in Oviedo, Florida, who kept Ehrhart company when the pandemic forced everyone into social distancing. Walters notes that being a biologist was not just Ehrhart’s credentials, but part of his character. Years after he hung up his lab coat Ehrhart would cycle around his neighborhood for hours and study the wildlife. That night around the backyard fire ring he would report back on the otter and shore bird activity for the day, Walters recalls.

At the same time, Ehrhart was one of the few people, Walters says, who would be genuinely interested in hearing her stories about bobcats, turkeys and all sorts of other animals visiting restored oyster reefs.

“People uniformly loved Llew,” Walters says. “He was a gentleman and a scholar.”

Pegasus Professor Graham Worthy shares a marine biology background with Ehrhart, but he didn’t have much one-on-one time with him. What he does know without a doubt is that Ehrhart “set the foundation for sea turtle research on a global scale.”

Most faculty with full-time labs establish a lineage of successful students; cocktail discussions at conferences revolve around who studied under whom. From that perspective, Ehrhart is an academic grandfather several times over for an impressive list of graduates who hold high-ranking positions on the national and state level. Perhaps more importantly, many of those graduates have developed their own sea turtle conservation initiatives.

“We talk about family trees in science, and in that context Llew was the seedling that started this whole thing,” Worthy says. “It’s grown into a very large and encompassing tree, and all these students that came through in the early years can trace their roots back to Llew.”

The discovery, which is detailed in a recent study in the journal Royal Society Open Science, sheds light on the role the gene variants, known as MHC class I  alleles, play in potentially protecting sea turtles from the disease.

This is the first time researchers have studied variation in MHC genes in green sea turtles. MHC proteins act as a gatekeeper of an adaptive immune system. If they recognize a pathogen threat, then the immune system responds specifically to it.

Fibropapillomatosis, or FP, causes sea turtles to develop tumors on their bodies, which can limit their mobility and also their health by interfering with their ability to catch and eat prey.

Researchers are still working to uncover the causes of FP, which could include environmental contamination. They are also trying to figure out why some sea turtles, such as loggerheads, are rarely observed with FP, while others, such as green sea turtles are often afflicted.

About half of the green sea turtles observed in the Indian River Lagoon have FP, researchers say.

Central Florida’s Atlantic coastline hosts about one-third of all green turtle nests in the state, and sea turtle health is important because the animals contribute to healthy oceans and coastlines by grazing and maintaining sea grass beds.

All sea turtles are categorized as threatened or endangered because of threats from pollution, coastal development and fishing, in addition to infectious diseases.

Better understanding the role genes play in protecting sea turtles can inform intervention strategies, such as captive breeding using turtles who have genetic defense against FP, says study co-author Anna Savage, an associate professor with UCF’s Department of Biology and a member of UCF’s Genomics and Bioinformatics research cluster.

“Just the baseline knowledge of how much variation is out there and is it relating to any certain phenotypes is really valuable, just for looking at how things change into the future,” Savage says. “But then also, if and when we do find really strong relationships between particular genetic variants and disease susceptibility, that’s a possible management tool if you need to intervene for the population to have a chance, if you know which of these MHC alleles are really important for surviving disease threats.”

The study’s lead author, Katherine Martin, a doctoral student in UCF’s Department of Biology, spearheaded the research in which MHC class I genes were sequenced from 268 green sea turtles and 88 loggerhead sea turtles.

The samples came from UCF’s Marine Turtle Research Group’s database of more than 30,000 Indian River Lagoon sea turtle records dating back to the early 1980s.

The researchers found 116 new-to-science alleles, some of which seemed to be associated either with the development of FP but also potentially the regression of tumors.

However, the researchers say even with all the new alleles discovered, they are still going to need more sampling to get a full picture of what role MHC alleles play in protecting sea turtles.

“We kind of have limited time to figure out what’s under the hood of their immune system,” Martin says. “And so I think studies like this show that there’s still a lot to learn about these organisms.”

The researchers’ next steps include expansion of sampling of green sea turtles and loggerheads as well as sampling and analyzing genetic information from other sea turtle species.

The work was funded by the Florida Sea Turtle License Plate Program and builds on previous studies, including research that looked at leeches as a possible vector that transmits FP to sea turtles.

The study also included co-author Kate Mansfield, director of UCF’s Marine Turtle Research Group. Mansfield is an associate professor in UCF’s Department of Biology and a member of UCF’s Sustainable Coastal Systems research cluster.

“I always joke our bimonthly team building exercise is fixing something on the boats,” says Kate Mansfield, an associate professor and director of the MTRG.

Researchers will now be using a new and specially outfitted 17-foot Brunswick Commercial & Government Products (BCGP) 170 Guardian for their work. The craft was provided by donations from the Folke H. Peterson Foundation and National Save the Sea Turtle Foundation, and made possible with a purchase discount from the Brunswick boat group companies that include BCGP, Boston Whaler and Mercury Marine.

“Boston Whaler and the Brunswick Commercial & Government Products Group supports environmental resource management and research efforts around the world,” says Kris Neff, president of Boston Whaler. “Our boats are ideally designed to handle the rigors and long-term serviceability of demanding applications, so we are confident that we are helping make a difference. Supporting the Ů��AV and the Marine Turtle Research Group is particularly satisfying because we are a Florida-based company, and because conserving sea life directly aligns with our customers interests as boaters.”

The MTRG is respected by scientists around the globe for its work unraveling sea turtle mysteries. Their legacy includes contributing to the establishment of the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge — a critical pocket of protected shoreline for annual nest sites. In 2021, they were the first to track young green sea turtles to the Sargasso Sea during their “lost years.”

Some of their research happens on shore, but much more comes from interacting with sea turtles on the water. Strict protocols allow them to safely net the turtles without endangering other marine life in the Indian River Lagoon, particularly dolphins and manatees. Deploying the net requires a careful choreography of boats, a procedure that quickly falls apart when an engine fails.

“I need to know that the boat is safe and functional,” Mansfield says. “If we’re getting knocked around by the wind and the engine conks out, it’s dangerous for us and the animals.”

When MTRG began working with Boston Whaler to order a new boat they had several specific requests, including stripping all the creature comforts, like coolers. With limited room aboard and multiple people handling different roles, it’s critical the net doesn’t snag on anything, Mansfield says.

Another customization that sets this new craft apart is the additional balancing and buoyancy. Full-grown turtles weigh hundreds of pounds and hauling them, and even smaller turtles, aboard takes coordination. A heavy soggy net on the bow can also skew the balance.

Mansfield says the new boat offers foremost increased efficiency and safety for the MTRG research team, but it’s also a win for turtle research.

“MTRG has been providing critical insights into the habits and behaviors of sea turtles for decades, and we still have so much more to learn,” said Larry Wood, research coordinator for the National Save the Sea Turtle Foundation. “We are excited to partner with them and play a part in furthering their research.”

“I know this one is going to hold up under the stress. It essentially ensures our long-term projects continue,” Mansfield says.

The disease, known as fibropapillomatosis, or FP, causes sea turtles to develop tumors on their bodies, which can limit their mobility and also their health by interfering with their ability to catch and eat prey.

While the cause of FP isn’t known, saltwater leeches have been suspected to play a role due to their frequent presence on areas of sea turtles where FP tumors often develop, such as on their eyes, mouths and flippers.

The results, which were published recently in the journal , are the first evidence of a significant association between leeches and the disease in sea turtles, according to the researchers.

“Florida is one of the areas most heavily impacted by FP,” says Anna Savage, an associate professor in UCF’s and study co-author. “Over the past three decades, approximately half of the green turtle juveniles encountered in the Indian River Lagoon have FP tumors, which is one of the highest rates documented,” she says.

Sea turtle health is important because the ancient marine reptiles contribute to healthy oceans and coastlines by grazing and maintaining sea grass beds.

All sea turtles are categorized as threatened or endangered because of threats from pollution, coastal development and fishing, in addition to infectious diseases.

Central Florida’s Atlantic coastline hosts about one-third of all green turtle nests in the state and is one of the most important nesting areas in the world for loggerheads.

Knowing if leeches play a role in the disease transmission can help researchers better understand and predict its spread, as well as inform conservation actions, such as leech removal in sea turtle rehabilitation centers.

The Process

The study’s lead author and a recent undergraduate alumna of UCF’s Biology Department, Leah Rittenburg, spearheaded the research and was responsible for the genetic analyses.

To find out a possible connection between leeches and FP, the researchers documented the presence of leeches on green and loggerhead turtles captured from the Indian River Lagoon and also used genetic analyses to determine if leeches collected from the turtles contained chelonid alphaherpesvirus 5, or ChHV5, the virus most likely responsible for disease development in an individual turtle.

“Our historical data, collected by the between 2006 and 2018, revealed that leech parasitism was significantly associated with FP in green turtles but not in loggerhead turtles,” Rittenburg says.

“For the genetic analysis, about one-fifth of the leeches we collected were positive for ChHV5, and one leech species trended towards coming from FP-positive turtles, further supporting the hypothesis that leeches may act as ChHV5 transmitters,” she says.

Now that the researchers have demonstrated a relationship between FP and leeches, they want to evaluate more specifically if leeches transmit the turtle herpesvirus, which would provide stronger evidence that the virus in an underlying cause of FP.

Study co-authors were Jake R. Kelley, a master’s student in UCF’s Department of Biology, and Kate L. Mansfield, an associate professor in UCF’s Department of Biology and director of the UCF Marine Turtle Research Group.

The research was funded by grants from UCF’s and by a Florida Sea Turtle License Plate grant.

Savage received her doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology from Cornell University. She is a member of UCF’s Genomics and Bioinformatics Cluster and joined UCF’s Department of Biology, part of UCF’s College of Sciences, in 2015.

The number of green sea turtle nests on central and southern Brevard County, Florida beaches monitored by ��AV biologists were way up during a year they should have been down based on nearly 40 years of historical data.

“Usually, green turtles alternate between high years and low years, but this year they defied expectations,” says Chris Long, a doctoral candidate and research assistant with “Green turtles had the fifth highest year on the Archie Carr Refuge that we’ve recorded since 1982. There is no evidence pointing to high nesting as a result of fewer people on the beaches or anything pandemic-related like that.  It’s difficult to know why nesting differed from expectation.”

East-Central Florida’s coastline (from Brevard to Indian River County) is among the most important nesting areas in the world for loggerhead sea turtles, and it also hosts about one-third of all green turtle nests in the state. The region is at the northern end of a “hotspot” for leatherbacks, which nest on the local beaches at a smaller scale as well. All sea turtles in the U.S. are protected under the Endangered Species Act.

UCF has run a sea turtle monitoring and research program on the beaches of the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge (ACNWR)  in southern Brevard County for more than 35 years. UCF findings about sea turtle abundance and behavior are among the reasons the refuge was created in 1991. The UCF Marine Turtle Research Group focuses on long-term nesting beach and coastal juvenile sea turtle research in Brevard and Indian River counties locally. The group also studies the oceanic “lost years” tracking turtles in the Gulf of Mexico, North and South Atlantic, and Indian Oceans.

All sea turtles saw an increase in nests along the coastline this year compared to recent years. Here’s a look at the numbers recorded by the UCF Marine Turtle Research Group’s covering the 13 northernmost miles of the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge. Final counts won’t be tallied until Oct. 31:

Green turtle nests:

• 2020: 8,110 (unexpectedly high for a “low year”)
• 2019: 15,784 (record, “high year”)
• 2018: 1,230 (typical “low year”)

Loggerhead nests:

• 2020: 12,968
• 2019: 10,813
• 2018: 11,901

Leatherback nests:

• 2020: 40
• 2019: 36
• 2018: 17
• Note: there are no clear trends in local leatherback counts; the highest recorded total nests was 55 in 2016.

In 2016 the university and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reached an agreement that established a permanent research facility at the refuge. UCF biologists and students use the facility as a base from which they do most of their coastal work, which includes early morning and overnight beach surveys. Researchers can be spotted marking nests and taking counts on clipboards along the beaches from March 1 to Oct. 31.

The UCF Marine Turtle Research Group counts all sea turtle nests and false crawls (non-nesting emergences) for each species, mark a subset of nests for future assessment, and, during summer months, measure and tag sea turtles they observe. They also keep close track of each species as they arrive on the nesting beach throughout the season. Leatherbacks arrive first, then loggerheads, and then finally the green turtles.

“It’s not what you would typically think of when you hear ‘NASA grant,’ ” says Sacco, who is leading the project and pursuing a doctorate degree in integrative and conservation biology. “[But] I’m excited for this unique opportunity from NASA.”

Before coming to UCF to work with sea turtles, Sacco earned his master’s degree at the University of Alaska Fairbanks by studying changes in sea ice and its impact on the local walrus population. Walrus are critical to many Alaskan Native communities in the Bering Sea because they are essential for community needs, Sacco says. He will apply the same mathematical and computer skills he used on the Alaska project to the sea turtle work here.

Sacco will be building an algorithm that tracks the brown algae sargassum as it makes its way across the Atlantic Ocean from the Gulf of Mexico to the Caribbean and the east coast of Africa. Sargassum, provides a safe place for sea turtle yearlings to float on during their early days of life.

The algae clumps can be a few inches to a couple of miles long and also provides other sea life with a source of food. Unfortunately, these mats of sargassum occasionally wash ashore — a problem that has made the news over the last few years. Scientists aren’t quite sure why this happens, but the impact is clear. The clumps can hurt water quality surrounding coastlines and could be impacting coral reefs. The murky water and rotting smell caused by these beaching events in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean are also impacting beachside communities that rely on tourism and recreational fishing.

Sacco’s algorithm will use American and European satellite images and radar data to create models that track sargassum. The radar is important because it can see through the clouds that cover the Atlantic Ocean. This will allow scientists to see the changes more clearly, offer clues about why sargassum may be degrading and determine how the change may impact the survival of endangered and threatened sea turtles.

Florida is in the heart of the migration path of several sea turtle species. Central Florida’s eastern coastline is among the most important nesting areas in the world for loggerhead sea turtles, and it also hosts about one-third of all green turtle nests in the state.

The computer model should also be able to help provide information for better predictions of where sargassum will come ashore, potentially helping communities prepare for or prevent the beach events, Sacco says.

The data collected will also provide information that could help researchers understand the sea turtles’ behavior while they float atop sargassum during their “lost years.”

“Lost years” refers to the period of time after the sea turtles hatch on beaches and head into the ocean and when they return to forage for food as juveniles several years later. Not a lot is known about this period of time, which is why it is nicknamed the “lost years.”

Sacco loves a good mystery. It is what led him to his work in Alaska and why he made his way to Florida in 2016.

Sacco read about UCF Associate Professor Kate Mansfield’s work tracking sea turtles in the Atlantic Ocean during the mysterious “lost years.”

“I thought that my previous experience could help uncover the mystery of the sea turtle lost years,” he says.

Mansfield, who teaches biology and leads the is eager to see Sacco’s results.

“We know so little about how these young turtles interact with their oceanic environment,” Mansfield says. “We know they associate with sargassum, but we don’t know how much time the turtles spend in this habitat, and we don’t know what happens when these mats and safe habitats get blown apart with changes in the wind direction or sea state. If we can better predict when and where young turtles are most likely to stay with a sargassum mat, we can design better management policies to help protect these species.”

Sacco has a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from SUNY: Empire State College in New York and a master’s degree in geophysics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He has co-authored several journal articles and expects to complete his doctorate in 2022.

Since the 1970s, UCF researchers have helped collect data that demonstrates the importance of Florida’s beaches to the life cycle of green, leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles. Central Florida’s Atlantic coastline is among the most important nesting areas in the world for loggerheads and hosts about one-third of all green turtle nests in the state.

Because of data collected by UCF researchers, a stretch of beach from southern Brevard County to Indian River County was set aside to help protect the endangered sea turtles. It’s now known as the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge. The conducts much of its year-round research in the Brevard County portion of the refuge.

The UCF team of conservation biologists and students has been monitoring nesting on the Brevard portion of the refuge for nearly 40 years and has monitored other Brevard beaches for more than 30 years. Beach and water data generated by the lab are invaluable for conservation efforts and provide UCF undergraduate students , which prepares them for graduate school and jobs.

UCF’s group is the only organization authorized to conduct sea turtle monitoring and nest marking throughout the 13 northern-most miles of the refuge and the Brevard County mid and south beaches under permits from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The UCF team also monitors Patrick Air Force Base in conjunction with the U.S. Air Force.

The group is celebrating World Sea Turtle Day today by continuing his research legacy. This is the height of sea turtle nesting season and more than 6,000 sea turtle nests have been counted by UCF on the Brevard County portion of the refuge since March with many more expected throughout the summer and early fall. The nesting season concludes in October.

Here are the three species commonly found locally. The information comes from the UCF team’s Facebook page, as part of the global #SeaTurtleWeek education efforts.

Leatherbacks are the largest species of turtle in the world and truly are modern dinosaurs. Weighing in between 600-800 pounds and growing up to 6 feet in length, it takes a great deal of effort for them to crawl on land. But in the water, they are graceful and powerful swimmers that can dive to depths in excess of 2,000 feet. They dive to forage on jellyfish and other gelatinous prey.

Green turtles are a wonderful story of conservation success in the U.S. and elsewhere. In the 1980s, there were fewer than 100 green turtle nests in the Archie Carr refuge. Now in a good year there are more than 15,000 nests. What happened? Killing green turtles for their meat was the main cause for their U.S, decline. But when conservation laws such as the Endangered Species Act of 1973 were passed, that made it illegal to kill or harm green turtles and it led to a strong population recovery. This isn’t only a story happening in the U.S. Green turtle populations around the globe are rising. Conservation works.

Loggerheads, have the highest density of nesting in the world along Florida’s Atlantic coast. Each year more than 90,000 loggerhead nests are made on Florida beaches. That means that measures we take in Florida to protect and conserve our turtles have a global impact. Loggerheads in the U.S. are still considered threatened because of fisheries bycatch that kill many turtles each year, so if their legal protections went away the population would likely swiftly decline.

Other sea turtles less commonly found in our area:

Hawksbills are the only sea turtles that relies upon sponges for food, and they use their pointy beaks to snip off pieces of sponge. In the turtle world, hawksbills are known for their tendency to nest in denser vegetation than other turtles. It’s not known why they do this, but it could be to keep their nests cooler or provide protection from predators. They are often considered the most beautiful sea turtle species because of their spectacular shell patterns.

The Kemp’s ridley is an uncommon visitor to Florida waters and beaches partly because it is the most endangered of the sea turtles. The only major nesting beaches for Kemp’s ridleys are in southern Texas and northern Mexico on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Kemp’s ridleys were majorly impacted by egg harvesting and the killing of adults for food, and are still coming back from those impacts and the impacts of the BP oil spill in the northern Gulf. UCF’s research group finds one or two Kemp’s nesting on our beaches each year, and UCF researchers have tracked more than 20 oceanic juvenile Kemp’s in offshore satellite tracking.