Microbial communities of wild-captured Kemp’s ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) and green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas)

Author:

McNally KL12,Mott CR3,Guertin JR3,Bowen JL4

Affiliation:

1. Animal Health Department, New England Aquarium, Boston, Massachusetts 02110, USA

2. University of Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts 20125, USA

3. Inwater Research Group, Inc., Jensen Beach, Florida 34957, USA

4. Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Marine Science Center, Northeastern University, Nahant, Massachusetts 01908, USA

Abstract

Conservation efforts for endangered sea turtle species, such as Kemp’s ridley turtles Lepidochelys kempii and green turtles Chelonia mydas, may benefit from information on the microbial communities that contribute to host health. Previous studies examining host-associated microbiomes of these species have been limited in geographic region, life stage, and/or health. Here, we characterized the microbiome of the oral cavity and cloaca from wild-captured Kemp’s ridley and green turtles off the west coast of Florida, USA, by using Illumina sequencing to analyze the 16S rRNA gene. Microbial communities were distinct between body sites as well as between turtle species, suggesting that the turtle species is more important than the local environment in determining the microbiome of sea turtles. We identified the core microbiome for each species at each body site and determined that there were very few bacteria shared among the oral samples of both species, and no taxa co-occurred in the cloaca samples among both species. The core microbiome of the green turtle cloaca was primarily from the order Clostridiales, which plays an important role in digestion for other herbivorous species. Due to high prevalence of fibropapillomatosis in the green turtles (90%), we also investigated the correlation between the microbiome and the severity of fibropapillomatosis, and we identified changes in beta diversity associated with the total number of tumors. This study provides the first glimpse of the microbiome in 2 sympatric species of sea turtle and sheds an important species-specific light on the microbiome of these endangered species.

Publisher

Inter-Research Science Center

Subject

Nature and Landscape Conservation,Ecology

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