Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) is believed to be the only herbivore among the sea turtles. In the early juvenile stage, they are considered to mainly feed on gelatinous plankton at the oceanic habitat. After later juvenile stage, they recruit to a neritic foraging habitat and become herbivore. However, previous studies of sea turtles have been mainly foucused on nesting females, therefore, lacks information about the foraging ecology of later juveniles. My interests are on the digestive ability of subadult of green sea turtle at its transitional period from omnivore to herbivore and have been investigating their food habit in the sanriku coastal area, northeast of Japan since 2012.

    I will investigate what they eat using bio-logging methods and what they digest using stable isotope analysis, and the objective of my research is to assess their digestive ability depending on its life stage.