engleski

Diatoms on loggerhead sea turtles: ecology & biogeography

In recent years, there is a growing scientific interest in epibiotic communities on sea turtles. A broad array of animals such as crustaceans, annelids, mollusks and macroalgae are known to thrive successfully as macro-epibionts on the sea turtle body surfaces. Together with these macroscopic organisms, sea turtles also host unique and diverse micro-epibiotic diatom communities composed of a large number of genera, several of which been described as new to science in the past five years. Typical examples of epizoic genera include Chelonicola, Medlinella and Poulinea, known exclusively from the carapaces and skin of different sea turtle species (Majewska et al. 2015, Frankovich et al. 2016). The current study analysed the epibiotic diatom communities associated with the carapace and skin of loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) from four geographically different populations: Amvrakikos Bay (Greece), Florida Bay (USA), Adriatic Sea (Croatia) and Kosi Bay (South Africa). The aim was to compare the diatom communities between the skin and carapace of loggerheads, between different individuals within one loggerhead population and between geographical different loggerhead populations. The results of this study show that loggerheads harbour several undescribed taxa and a very divers diatom flora, of which some are presumably exclusively epizoic taxa, but the majority are likely opportunistic taxa able to thrive on both biotic and abiotic substrata. Loggerheads from different populations are dominated by different diatom taxa and there appears to be a difference between the epizoic communities living on the skin and carapace of these sea turtles. Future research provide new insights 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.

diatoms, new taxa, loggerhead sea turtles

nije evidentirano