engleski

The TurtleBIOME project: insight into epizoic diatom communities on loggerhead sea turtles

In recent years, there is a growing scientific interest in epibiotic communities on sea turtles. A broad array of animals and photosynthetic organisms, such as crustaceans, annelids, molluscs and macroalgae, are known to thrive successfully as macro-epibionts on the sea turtle body surfaces. Novel findings show that sea turtles also harbour diverse diatom communities. Sea turtle-associated diatoms show ability to colonize the surface of almost every animal tissue, both skin and carapace and several new species and genera have been described worldwide from all sea turtle species. Apparently, some of these organisms require animal substrate to live and develop and are thus exclusively epizoic and depending entirely on their hosts. As very little is known about the microalgae inhabiting sea turtles, we have launched the TurtleBIOME project, a study that will allow us to obtain the very first description of sea turtle microbial biodiversity by studying the microbiome of several Mediterranean populations of loggerhead sea turtles. The proposed study will provide baseline data on the composition of loggerhead microbiota that then might be integrated with the existing information about sea turtle behaviour, their migration routes, and foraging habitats thus contributing to a long term plans for sea turtle protection. The presentation will introduce the project and highlights of the unique diatom flora that has been found on loggerhead turtles from the Adriatic and Ionian Sea. Comparisons are made with similar communities found on loggerhead populations worldwide. This investigation may open many new avenues for further research into co-evolution and biogeography of microbial epibionts and their hosts as well as their capacity to function as ecological indicators of sea turtle behaviour and health.

Turtle microbiome, epizoic, diatoms, epibiontic, seaturtles, loggerheads

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