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Ontogenetic Investigation Of Underwater Hearing Capabilities In Loggerhead Sea Turtles (Caretta Caretta) Using A Dual Testing Approach, Ashley L. Lavender, Soraya M. Bartol, Ian K. Bartol

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Sea turtles reside in different acoustic environments with each life history stage and may have different hearing capacity throughout ontogeny. For this study, two independent yet complementary techniques for hearing assessment, i.e. behavioral and electrophysiological audiometry, were employed to (1) measure hearing in post-hatchling and juvenile loggerhead sea turtles Caretta caretta (19-62 cm straight carapace length) to determine whether these migratory turtles exhibit an ontogenetic shift in underwater auditory detection and (2) evaluate whether hearing frequency range and threshold sensitivity are consistent in behavioral and electrophysiological tests. Behavioral trials first required training turtles to respond to known frequencies, a multi-stage, …