In our new global study, we make an effort to deal with the long standing enigma of multiple paternity.
We review the incidence of multiple paternity for sea turtles nesting around the World and further work on high resolution at-sea GPS tracking to show that the specifics of movement patterns play a key role in driving packing density and hence the likely rate of male–female encounters. We conclude that multiple paternity in sea turtles may have no benefit, but is simply a consequence of the incidence of male–female encounters.
