engleski

Diversity of diatom and bacterial communities associated with loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta)

Loggerhead sea turtles are ancient marine reptiles inhabiting the oceans worldwide. They are colonized by microorganisms both in the gastrointestinal tract and on their carapace and skin. In this thesis, which consists of four scientific publications, the loggerhead sea turtle- associated diatom and bacterial communities were investigated by high-throughput sequencing of chloroplast rbcL gene and 16S rRNA gene, and cultivation. The culture- independent approach has shown that loggerheads harbor diverse but stable bacterial communities in their cloaca, and that the oral microbiota reflects the turtle’s environment. The carapace and skin harbor complex microbial communities often rich in as yet unclassified taxa. Diatoms isolated from carapace and skin were cultivated as xenic monocultures and further characterized using morphology and molecular techniques to elucidate their identity and phylogeny. Novel diatom taxa were discovered, often belonging to the genera Craspedostauros, Fallacia, or Amphora genus. Cultivated diatoms also enabled the characterization of the phycosphere and isolation of diatom-associated bacterial strains.

microbiome ; microbial communities ; amplicon sequencing ; reptiles ; phycosphere

Naslov na hrvatskom jeziku: Raznolikost mikrobnih zajednica dijatomeja i bakterija glavatih želvi (Caretta caretta)