TY - JOUR T1 - Region-specific magnetic field structure sea turtle populations JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/630152 SP - 630152 AU - Sahmorie J.K. Cameron AU - Miguel Baltazar-Soares AU - Christophe Eizaguirre Y1 - 2019/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/05/07/630152.abstract N2 - Philopatry and long distance migrations are common in the animal kingdom, of which sea turtles are flagship examples. Recent studies have suggested sea turtles use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate across ocean basins to return to their natal area; yet the mechanisms underlying this process remain unknown. If true, the genetic structure at nesting sites should positively correlate with differences in location-specific magnetic vectors within nesting regions. Here, we confirm this working hypothesis and demonstrate transspecies adaptation of sea turtles to local magnetic field vectors in certain nesting regions of the world, but not others. We describe magneto-sensing regions as characterized by sharp clines of total and vertical field intensity vectors offering the navigation cues that could increase philopatric accuracy and promote genetic structuring between sea turtle populations. ER -