by Vanessa Bezy, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill | February 26, 2015 12:56pm
This article was originally published on The Conversation. The publication contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
On a small stretch of beach at Ostional in Costa Rica, hundreds of thousands of sea turtles nest simultaneously in events known as arribadas. Because there are so many eggs in the sand, nesting females frequently dig up previously laid nests, leaving the beach littered with broken eggs. But these endangered sea turtles are facing a new threat: sand microbes encouraged by the decomposing eggs.
Results from a new study we’ve published in PLOS ONE show how these sand microbes cause low levels of oxygen in the nests that interfere with the embryonic development of the sea turtles.
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