Population genetic diversity of green turtles, Chelonia mydas, in the Mediterranean revisited
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Date
Nisan 2022Author
Karaman, SezginTürkozan, Oğuz
Carreras, Carlos
Yılmaz, Can
Sönmez, Bektaş
Candan, Onur
Ergene, Serap
Ergene, Mahmut
Uçar, Aşkın Hasan
Ulger, Celal
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Show full item recordAbstract
The Mediterranean green turtle regional management unit is one of the 17 management units of green turtles considered a
global conservation priority. However, previous studies using different genetic markers revealed very little diversity and differentiation
across populations due to the overdominance of one haplotype (CM-A13) in the Mediterranean. We, therefore,
used a more informative marker, mitochondrial short tandem repeats (mtSTRs), in 431 samples collected along the eastern
Mediterranean coasts of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. In addition, we added the mtSTR haplotypes of previous studies and
reached a total of 980 samples covering 12 nesting beaches (almost 100% of the populations in the region). We identified
42 haplotypes, 4 of which were recorded for the first time in the region. The species has a genetic diversity in the region
higher than previously thought, ranging from 0.54 (Sugözü, Turkey) to 0.934 (Israel) and with the most common haplotypes
being 6-8-8–4 (26.5%), 6-8-5-4 (17.3%), and 6-8-6-4 (14.9%). The analysis of a more extensive data set of mtSTRs supported
recognizing at least three management units in the Mediterranean. Furthermore, we used the new data to assess the
origin of the turtles foraging in Israel. We determined that Samandağ (Turkey) was the population of origin of most of the
individuals. Overall, we show that mtSTRs highly improve the resolution to detect population structuring and source for
this species and region.