A Baseline Model For Estimating the Risk of Gas Embolism in Sea Turtles During Routine Dives

Sea turtles, like other air-breathing diving vertebrates, commonly experience significant gas embolism (GE) when incidentally caught at depth in fishing gear and brought to the surface. To better understand why sea turtles develop GE, we built a mathematical model to estimate partial pressures of N 2 (PN 2 ), O 2 (PO 2 ), and CO 2 (PCO 2 ) in the major body-compartments of diving loggerheads ( Caretta caretta ), leatherbacks ( Dermochelys...