ABSTRACT.Hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) inhabiting the eastern Pacific Ocean are one of the world's most threatened marine turtle management units. Despite the fact that knowledge about the status of sea turtles at foraging grounds is a key element for developing the effective conservation strategies, comprehensive studies of hawksbills at foraging habitats in the eastern Pacific remain lacking. For many years anecdotal information indicated Coiba Island National Park in Panama as a potentially important hawksbill foraging ground, which led to the initiation of monitoring surveys in September 2014. Ongoing mark-recapture surveys to assess population status, generate demographic data and identify key foraging sites have been conducted every six months in the park since that time. To date, a total of six monitoring campaigns consisting of four days each have been conducted, leading to the capture and tagging of 186 hawksbills, 51 of which were recaptured at least once. The size range of captured individuals was 30.0 to 75.5 cm and largely comprised of juveniles. Somatic growth rates of individual hawksbills were highly variable, ranging from -0.78 to 7.1 cm year -1 . To our knowledge, these are the first published growth rates for juvenile hawksbill turtles in the eastern Pacific Ocean. When these growth data are combined with information on hawksbill demography and distribution, our findings indicate Coiba Island National Park is one of the most important known foraging sites for hawksbill sea turtles in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

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Catchment hydrology is influenced by land‐use change through alteration of rainfall partitioning processes. We compared rainfall partitioning (throughfall, stemflow and interception) and soil water content in three land‐use types (primary forest, secondary forest and agriculture) in the Santa Fe region of Panama. Seasonal patterns were typified by larger volumes of throughfall and stemflow in the wet season, and the size of precipitation events was the main driver of variation in rainfall redistribution. Land‐use‐related differences in rainfall partitioning were difficult to identify due to the high variability of throughfall. However, annual throughfall in agricultural sites made up a larger proportion of gross precipitation than throughfall in forest sites (94 ± 1, 83 ± 6 and 81 ± 1% for agriculture, primary and secondary forests, respectively). Proportional throughfall (% of gross precipitation becoming throughfall) was consistent throughout the year for primary forest, but for secondary forest, it was larger in the dry season than the wet season. Furthermore, proportional stemflow in the dry season was larger in secondary forest than primary forest. Stemflow, measured only in primary and secondary forests, ranged between 0.9 and 3.2% of gross precipitation. Relative soil moisture content in agricultural plots was generally elevated during the first half of the dry season in comparison to primary and secondary forests. Because throughfall is elevated in agricultural plots, we suggest careful management of the spatial distribution and spread of this land‐use type to mitigate potential negative impacts in the form of floods and high erosion rates in the catchment. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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