Jellyfish or plastic bag? Alex Smith a deadly guessing game http://www.deviantart.com/tag/plasticbag http://a-z-animals.com/animals/jellyfish/

Background research leatherbacks primary food source is jellyfish leatherbacks are nearsighted previous research looked at differentiation of objects by sea turtles based on luminance, flexibility and translucency turtles tend to prefer items that are less bright, more flexible, and more translucent rely primarily on visual cues when foraging, even when presented with chemical cues as well leatherbacks forage for jellyfish near Nova Scotia and New Foundland even if they nest in the Guianas (northeastern south america: french guinea, guyana, suriname, and part of venezuela) eat the white cannonball jellyfish and sea wasps and stinging pink nettles had the turtles choose food ad examined stomach contents https://prezi.com/kulrjnnbmhbg/apes-endangered-project-leatherback-sea-turtles/

background research Cont’d plastic can cause intestinal compaction or tearing, digestive suppression, and exposure to chemical toxicants juvenile turtles have been shown to have more than a third of their diet as plastic debris americans use 100 million plastic bags each year and only 0.6% are recycled DDT AND PCB

BAckground Research Cont’d sea turtle cornea refractive index is same as the refractive index of seawater see color in shorter wavelengths have the visual acuity of other benthic shallow water marine species leatherbacks have more open peripherals than the more shallow water species, like loggerheads and greens 450-620 nm—blue to ultraviolet avoided the blue bait oil droplets in the cones of the eye help discriminate between wavelengths

Null hypothesis There will be no significant difference between light readings of jellyfish and plastic bags after light has passed through and reflected off of the object. decided to test balloons later in the experiment http://caribbeanlivingblog.com/2013/07/02/she-sells-sea-turtle-shells-part-1/

methods Collect cannonball jellyfish (Stomolophus meleagris), plastic bags, and balloons from the beach Freeze jellyfish to preserve them Build the light apparatus (closed light system so only light comes from or through test objects) Place object over the plexiglass hole in the bottom of the bucket and shine a light through it Read the amount of light (lux) coming through with a light meter in the top radiometric unit watts per square meter measures the perceived power of light, not the total power of electromagnetic variation

Methods Cont’d Place PVC pipe in the top of the bucket and shine a light through the pipe into the bucket, reflecting the light off of the object Take a light reading of the albedo of the test object with the light meter. Use unpaired T-tests to test for a significant difference between jellyfish and bags/balloons

The light containment apparatus This isolated the light that shone through and off of the objects for the light meter measurements. didn't end up filling with water bc too hard to measure with light meter Transmittance Luminance/Reflectivity

Results (all bags) Transmittance analysis—statistically significant P<0.0001 degrees of freedom=24 std error=19.915 Luminance analysis— NOT statistically significant P=0.1574 degrees of freedom=24 std error=0.104

Results (Bhi bags) Luminance analysis—statistically significant Transmittance analysis—statistically significant P<0.0001 degrees of freedom=20 std error=9.676 Luminance analysis—statistically significant P=0.0014 degrees of freedom=20 std error=0.072

Results (other bags) Transmittance analysis—statistically significant P=0.0049 degrees of freedom=16 std error=16.859 Luminance analysis— NOT statistically significant P=0.6214 degrees of freedom=16 std error=0.152

Results (balloons) Luminance analysis—statistically significant Transmittance analysis—statistically significant P=0.0025 degrees of freedom=16 std error=32.109 Luminance analysis—statistically significant P=0.0026 degrees of freedom=17 std error=0.127

had trouble making error bars,balloonandjellyfishdevationsdonotactuallyoverlap

you can see that the readings took place on different scales of lux

https://prezi.com/dmdqpyt_eupt/polymers-and-the-environment/ Discussion The transmittance readings showed that jellyfish and the pollution let in different amounts of light (were not similar) The luminance readings for bags from BHI and for balloons were very different The luminance readings for all bags and the bags that were not from BHI are similar to jellyfish readings https://prezi.com/dmdqpyt_eupt/polymers-and-the-environment/

conclusion Luminance is the most important reading because of how turtles forage. Bald Head Island bags may be of least concern compared to other plastic bags. Balloons are not a large concern. Overall plastic bags are still a concern for turtle conservation. The experiment did not provide enough evidence or test enough variables to say that bags are easily mistaken or not conclusively. turtles eat laterally color of bald head bags are all white and seem to be least similar bags were new and hadn’t been bleached by the salt water from extended exposure would have liked to have used a spectrophotometer, but budget and complexity restraints

Plastic bags don’t taste good! http://www.wunderground.com/wximage/viewsingleimage.html?mode=singleimage&handle=Willow13&number=665 Plastic bags don’t taste good!

Works Cited Carr, A. (1980). Some Problems of Sea Turtle Ecology. American Zoology, 20, 489-498. Rudloe, J. (1979). Time of the Turtle. New York, NY: Truman Talley Books. Schuyler, Q., Wilcox, C., et al. (2014). Mistaken Identity? Visual similarity of marine debris to natural prey items of sea turtles. BMC Ecology, 14(14). Donnelly, M. (2009). Plastics-at-Sea Catastrophe. Sea Turtle Conservancy Newsletter: Velador. (4). Bartol, S. M. and Musick, J. A. (2003). The Biology of Sea Turtles, Vol. 2. London:CRC Press. Young, M., Salmon, M., et al. (2012). Visual Wavelength discrimination by the loggerhead turtle, Caretta caretta. The Biological Bulletin, 222 (1). any questions?