engleski

A polyphasic approach for identification of epibiotic diatoms associated with loggerhead sea turtles in Adriatic Sea

The loggerhead sea turtle is widely distributed throughout the world's oceans with a now- thriving population in the Mediterranean Sea. Loggerhead sea turtles seem to harbor a diverse assemblage of macro- and micro-epibionts living on their shells and skin. Recent studies focused on sea turtle- associated diatoms indicate that some of them may be exclusively epizoic or even sea turtle-specific as they have not yet been found on other immersed objects in the sea. New genera (e.g. Medlinella, Chelonicola, Poulinea) and species (e.g. Achnanthes elongata, Labellicula lecohuiana, Tursiocola denysii) have been found and described from several species of sea turtles from various geographical locations mainly through morphological studies whereas molecular information is lacking. Moreover, the exact composition of the diatom community associated with geographically isolated sea turtle populations, its change in time and space, the epibiotic diatom ecological function, and complex relationships between diatoms and other microbes within the sea turtle holobiont remain poorly understood. Here we show the results of implementing morphological and molecular phylogenetic approaches to gain more complete information about the loggerhead associated diatom communities in the Adriatic Sea. By isolating living cells from loggerhead carapace and skin scrapings and growing them in monocultures we obtained enough material for both morphological (LM and SEM characterization) and molecular analyses (using molecular markers rbcL, psbC, and SSU). The isolated strains include Amphora, Navicula, Parlibellus, and Nitzschia species, possibly growing on sea turtles opportunistically, but also potential exclusively epizoic taxa belonging to genera such as Poulinea, Achnathes, Proschkinia, and Craspedostauros.

diatoms ; molecular biology ; biotechnology

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