Mote Marine Laboratory

Dr. Tucker is a senior research scientist with the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC).

I have been actively involved in sea turtle research since 1979.  Research has included projects on loggerhead turtles in Georgia, Florida, Australia and Oman; leatherback turtles in Puerto Rico and French Guiana; hawksbill turtles in Puerto Rico, Haiti, and Australia; olive ridley turtles in Costa Rica, French Guiana, and India; Kemp’s ridleys in Florida; green turtles in Australia and Malaysia; flatback turtles in Australia.  Member of the IUCN Marine Turtle Specialist Group and the International Sea Turtle Society. 

I was a former staff scientist and program manager for the Sea Turtle Conservation and Research Program at Mote Marine Laboratory (MML).  The STCRP staff annually trains and coordinates field efforts of 10 college interns and 300+ community-based conservation volunteers. Over three decades MML has monitored 35 miles of Sarasota County beaches that host the largest loggerhead nesting rookery in the Gulf of Mexico.  Since 2005, the program has conducted extensive satellite tracking studies, primarily on loggerheads, greens and Kemp’s ridley turtles to quantify seasonal migrations and shared the tracks publicly as educational outreach via www.seaturtle.org.

My research interests are centered in life history evolution and conservation biology of vertebrates, with particular interests in how fluctuating environments can influence population dynamics.  The approach has two components - (1) development of testable predictions based on life history models, and (2) testing of the predictions with field-collected data by application of modern mathematical and statistical methods.

2003          Courtesy Associate Professor, Univ. Florida, Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Dept.
2001          Postdoctoral Fellow, Colorado State Univ., College of Natural Resources
2000          Adjunct Research Fellow, University of Canberra, Institute for Applied Ecology
1997          Ph.D. Zoology, Univ. Queensland                       
1989          M.S. Zoology, Univ. Georgia
1979          B.S. Biology, Georgia Southern College (Biological Oceanography)

2008 Principal Investigator of the Year, Earthwatch Institute, Australia
2007 STCRP received Sarasota Country Environmental Services Award for Community Conservation
2006 Distinguished Alumnus Award, Dept. of Biology, Georgia Southern University
1990 Archie Carr Award for best student paper - 10th Symp. Sea Turtle Biology /Conservation
1990 Eugene P. Odum Award, SE chapter of Ecological Society of America
1988 Meritorious Act Award, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Epperley, S. P., A. Nunes, H. Zwartepoorte, L. Byrd, M. Koperski, L. Stokes, M. Braganca, A.D. Tucker, and C. R. Sasso.  2013. The repatriation of a Kemps ridley from the Eastern Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico.  Marine Turtle Newsletter 136: in press. 

Shamblin, B. M., A. B. Bolten, K. A. Bjorndal, P. H. Dutton, J. T. Nielsen, F. A. Abreu-Grobois, K. J. Reich, B.E. Witherington, D. A. Bagley, L. M. Ehrhart, A. D. Tucker, D. S. Addison, A. Arenas, C. Johnson, R. R. Carthy, M. M. Lamont, M. G. Dodd, M. S. Gaines, Erin LaCasella, C. J. Nairn. 2012.  Increased resolution of stock structure among North Atlantic loggerhead turtle rookeries with expanded control region sequences.  Marine Ecology Progress Series 469:145-160. 

Martin, K.J., Sarah C. Alessi, Joseph C. Gaspard, Anton D. Tucker, Gordon B. Bauer, and David A. Mann.  2012. Underwater hearing in the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta): comparison of behavioral and auditory evoked potential audiograms. Journal of Experimental Biology 215: 3001-3009.

Tucker, AD, F Guarino, and TE Priest.  2012.  Where lakes were once rivers:  contrasts of freshwater turtle diets within dams and rivers of southeast Queensland.  Chelonian Conservation and Biology 11(1): 12-23.

Reed, R.N. and A.D. Tucker.  2012. Determination of age, sex, and reproductive condition in reptiles. Pp. 151-163 In R. W. McDiarmid, M. S. Foster, J. W. Gibbons, and N. Chernoff (eds). Reptile Biodiversity: Standard Methods for Inventory and Monitoring.  Univ. California Press.

Hart, KM, MM Lamont, I Fujisake, AD Tucker, and RR Carthy.  2012.  Common coastal foraging areas for loggerheads in the Gulf of Mexico: opportunities for marine conservation.  Biological Conservation 145:185-194.

Thomson, S., R. Kennett, A. Tucker, N. Fitzsimmons, P. Featherston, E. A. Alacs, and A. Georges. 2012. Chelodina burrungandjii. Thomson, Kennett, and Georges 2000- Sandstone snake-necked turtle. Conservation Biology of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises.  Chelonian Research Monographs 5: 056.1-056.7.

Tucker, A. D.  2010.  Nest site fidelity and clutch frequency of loggerhead turtles are better elucidated by satellite telemetry than by nocturnal tagging efforts.  Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 383:48-55.

Tucker, A.D., T. Wibbels, and J. Estes-Layton. 2010.  Radar golf balls as a recovery aid for field studies.  Marine Turtle Newsletter 129:7-9.

Tucker, A. D. 2009.  Eight nests recorded for a loggerhead turtle within one season.  Marine Turtle Newsletter 124: 16-17.

Bordwardt C and A. D. Tucker.  2009.  Florida’s sea turtles and light.  in T. Posch, A. Freyhoff, and T. Uhlmann (eds). Das Ende Der Nacht:  Die Globale Lichtvershmutzung und ihre Folgen.  J. Wiley (German Edition).

Tucker, T.  2009. Turtle Gaze. Pp. 185-189 in J. K. Reiser (ed.), Courting the Wild: Lover Affairs with Reptiles and Amphibians.  Hiraeth Press.

Welsh, R. and A. D. Tucker. 2009.  Shifting patterns of nocturnal emergence events for nesting loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta).  Marine Turtle Newsletter 125: 10-12.

Girard, C., A. D. Tucker, and B. Calmettes.  2009.  Post-nesting migrations of loggerhead sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico: dispersal in highly dynamic conditions.  Marine Biology 156: 1827-1839. 

Tucker, T.  2008.  Evaluating hazards of boat impact on loggerhead turtles during the internesting period.  Pp. 101-105 in G. Mashall (ed.). Proceedings of the 2007 Animal Born Imaging Symposium.  National Geographic Society, 298 pp.

Yeiser, B. G., J. J. Morris, and A. D. Tucker.  2008. Caretta caretta (loggerhead turtle). Predation.  Herpetological Review 39: 343-344.

Department: Directorate of Marine Biology & Conservation