UC Santa Barbara

Marine megafauna are large, long-lived, highly mobile, and feed below the surface, making much of their ecology mysterious to humans. They are also exposed to a number of human-caused threats of varying magnitude across their ranges, which are of particular concern for endangered species. Because of their cryptic nature, quantitative estimates such as their roles as consumers across disparate oceanic food webs are lacking. I use multiple non-invasive approaches such as stable isotope analyses, genetics, expert surveys, and cumulative impacts modeling to describe the ecology and conservation priorities of sea turtles and marine mammals for case-study populations that lack estimates. In my dissertation, I discuss how my findings enhance our understanding of megafauna ecology, and how these integrative approaches may advance the ways in which we prioritize research and management strategies to meet population recovery objectives.