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The following protocol is intended to respond to the requirements set by the European Union's Marine Strategy Framework Directives (MSFD) for the D10C3 Criteria reported in the Commission Decision (EU), related to the amount of litter ingested by marine animals. Standardized methodologies for extracting litter items ingested from dead sea turtles along with guidelines on data analysis are provided. The protocol starts with the collection of dead sea turtles and classification of samples according to the decomposition status. Turtle necropsy must be performed in authorized centers and the protocol described here explains the best procedure for gastrointestinal (GI) tract isolation. The three parts of the GI (esophagus, stomach, intestine) should be separated, opened lengthways and contents filtered using a 1 mm mesh sieve. The article describes the classification and quantification of ingested litter, classifying GI contents into seven different categories of marine litter and two categories of natural remains. The quantity of ingested litter should be reported as total dry mass (weight in grams, with two decimal places) and abundance (number of items). The protocol proposes two possible scenarios to achieve the Good Environmental Status (GES). First: "There should be less than X% of sea turtles having Y g or more plastic in the GI in samples of 50-100 dead turtles from each sub-region", where Y is the average weight of plastic ingested and X% is the percentage of sea turtles with more weight (in grams) of plastic than Y. The second one, which considers the food remain versus plastic as a proxy of individual health, is: "There should be less than X% of sea turtles having more weight of plastic (in grams) than food remains in the GI in samples of 50-100 dead turtles from each sub-region". C1 [Matiddi, Marco; Silvestri, Cecilia; Piermarini, Raffaella; Daffina, Roberto; Pisapia, Marco; Genta, Daniela] Italian Natl Inst Environm Protect & Res ISPRA, Rome, Italy. [deLucia, Giuseppe A.; Camedda, Andrea] Inst Coastal Marine Environm Natl Res Council IAM, Rome, Italy. [Darmon, Gaelle; Gambaiani, Delphine; Miaud, Claude] Univ P Valery, PSL Res Univ, UMR 5175 CE3FE,EPHE, CNRS,UM,IRD,INRA,SupAgro,Biogeog & Ecol Vertebras, Montpellier, France. [Tomas, Jesus; Revuelta, Ohiana] Univ Valencia, Cavanilles Inst Biodivers & Evolutionary Biol, Valencia, Spain. [Pham, Christopher K.; Vandeperre, Frederic; Rodriguez, Yasmina] Univ Acores, Dept Oceanog & Pescas, Inst Mar Okeanos, Ponta Delgada, Portugal. [Vandeperre, Frederic] Univ Acores, MARE Marine & Environm Sci Ctr, Ponta Delgada, Portugal. [Claro, Francoise; Moussier, Judicaelle] Museum Natl Hist Nat, Paris, France. [Kaska, Yakup; Sozbilen, Dogan] Pamukkale Univ, Sea Turtle Res & Applicat Ctr DEKAMER, Pamukkale, Turkey. [Kaberi, Helen; Tsangaris, Catherine] Hellenic Ctr Marine Res, Inst Oceanografy, Anavyssos, Greece. [Bradai, Mohamed N.; Chaieb, Olfa] INSTM, Salammbo, Tunisia. [Loza, Ana L.] Univ Las Palmas Gran Canaria, Las Palmas Gran Canaria, Spain.

In 2010, an international group of 35 sea turtle researchers refined an initial list of more than 200 research questions into 20 metaquestions that were considered key for management and conservation of sea turtles. These were classified under 5 categories: reproductive biology, biogeography, population ecology, threats and conservation strategies. To obtain a picture of how research is being focused towards these key questions, we undertook a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature (2014 and 2015) attributing papers to the original 20 questions. In total, we reviewed 605 articles in full and from these 355 (59%) were judged to substantively address the 20 key questions, with others focusing on basic science and monitoring. Progress to answering the 20 questions was not uniform, and there were biases regarding focal turtle species, geographic scope and publication outlet. Whilst it offers some meaningful indications as to effort, quantifying peer-reviewed literature output is ob viously not the only, and possibly not the best, metric for understanding progress towards informing key conservation and management goals. Along with the literature review, an international group based on the original project consortium was assigned to critically summarise recent progress towards answering each of the 20 questions. We found that significant research is being expended towards global priorities for management and conservation of sea turtles. Although highly variable, there has been significant progress in all the key questions identified in 2010. Undertaking this critical review has highlighted that it may be timely to undertake one or more new prioritizing exercises. For this to have maximal benefit we make a range of recommendations for its execution. These include a far greater engagement with social sciences, widening the pool of contributors and focussing the questions, perhaps disaggregating ecology and conservation.