engleski

The epizoic diatom assemblages on Caretta caretta (Linnaeus, 1758) from the Aegean Sea coast of Turkey

There are eight sea turtle species in the world and one of them, Carettacaretta (Linnaeus, 1758) or loggerhead turtle, is found in nearly all the world's temperate and tropical oceans. During winter months, loggerhead sea turtles migrate to tropical and subtropical waters where adult females lay several clutches of eggs on specific sandy beaches during a nesting season. A total of 20 beaches were determined to represent the main nesting areas for loggerhead turtles in Turkey. These turtles are potential vectors for colonisation in various species of marine flora and faunas they host a variety of plants and animals as epibionts, particularly on the carapace region. In this study, we have begun to document the diatom flora on the carapace of C. caretta from the Turkish coast, which is a transition region between the Aegean and the Mediterranean Seas. Diatom assemblages were collected from the carapace of six C. caretta individuals. Part of the samples were preserved and cleaned for LM and EM examination, which we found were dominated by a very small representative of the epizoobiontic genus Tripterion R.W. Holmes, S. Nagasawa& H. Takano, which is probably a species new to science. Interestingly, representatives of the genus Olifantiella Riaux-Gobin & Compère known thus far only from the tropical Oceans (Indian and Pacific) also occur in the epibiontic flora. We have also documented several species of Amphora, Mastogloia, Navicula and, Nitzschia. A portion of each sample was also kept alive and clonal cultures in f/2 medium were established from some of the diatoms present at the Paleoceanography Unit at the University of Szczecin. These cultures include taxa from genera such as Achnanthes, Amphora, Navicula and Odontella. Genomic DNA will be extracted from these clones and the sequence data will be used in phylogenetic analyses.

Loggerhead turtle; Epizooic diatoms; Diversity; biogeography; Mediterranean Sea; Turkish coast

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