Current Status of and Threats to Sicilian Turtles

Abstract

Based on the critical review of the literature published in the last 22 years, an attempt was made to evaluate the current knowledge gap on the distribution and status of the native Testudines taxa occurring in Sicily (namely Caretta caretta, Emys trinacris, and Testudo hermanni hermanni), as well as the available knowledge of the only non-native species with putative viable populations occurring on the island, i.e., Trachemys scripta. Summarizing the current information, all of the Testudines species occurring in Sicily showed a fragmented and incompletely-known distribution, and only scarce data are available about their phenology. Moreover, despite their inclusion of international and national laws (Bern Convention, CITES, Habitat directive), all three native species are facing several threats (e.g., habitat alteration, the occurrence of invasive species, parasite spillover) leading to a reduction of their populations on the island. Future monitoring programs on the island should be enhanced, with an emphasis on those taxa in decline. Moreover, involve Citizen Science programs should also be implemented in order to increase the awareness of non-experts and facilitate the monitoring task.

Conservation Genetics of the Loggerhead Sea Turtle, Caretta caretta, from the Central Mediterranean: An Insight into the Species’ Reproductive Behaviour in Maltese Waters

“…Currently, CC-A2.1 is the most commonly encountered haplotype, present in more than 60% of the free-living Mediterranean loggerhead sea turtles [21,[56][57][58][59][60]. This haplotype dominates most Mediterranean nests and has been detected in all nesting areas studied [22,41,59,61,62]. Haplotype CC-A3.1 is the second most commonly encountered haplotype in the Mediterranean Sea and accounts for around 20% of the free-living individuals studied [21,[56][57][58].…”

The effects of substrate temperature on the reproductive success of Caretta caretta on a volcanic beach in the Mediterranean Sea

“…To the effects of climate change on sea turtle nest success must be added those caused by human activities such as the construction of buildings along the coasts, the construction of ports and/or artificial breakwater barriers, the diversion and/or overbuilding of watercourses (resulting in a reduced input of sediments that reach the sea), and the occurrence of pollutants (e.g., Savoca et al, 2021;Savoca et al, 2022). This description concerns a large portion of the Italian sandy shorelines (Borzì et al, 2021) and has direct implications for Caretta caretta management (Vecchioni et al, 2022a). The loggerhead sea turtle Caretta caretta is the most common and studied species among the sea turtles present in the Mediterranean Sea.…”

“…Unfortunately, such information is not very useful as it is often unreliable and lacking essential information. Conversely, scientific papers dealing with this topic appear to date rather limited (e.g., Blasi et al, 2022;Denaro et al, 2022;Vecchioni et al, 2022a;Vecchioni et al, 2022b). Recently, Hochscheid et al (2022) have shown that from 2010 to 2023 in the western sector of the Mediterranean Caretta caretta has shown a progressive expansion of the nesting area, as evidenced by the occurrence of a high number of nests in areas where the females had never been known to lay eggs before.…”

Journal of Water and Land Development

“…LIUZZO et al [2020] reported the sighting of a female T. scripta laying eggs in Lago di Pergusa (Sicily, Italy). Besides that, nothing is known about its possible reproduction success and establishment of self-sustaining populations in Sicily, and information on the distribution of the species on the island is scant [BELLA, TURRISI 2005;LILLO 2008;VECCHIONI et al 2022].…”