Historical perspectives on population genetics and conservation of three marine turtle species

    Authors

    J. S. Reece; T. A. Castoe;C. L. Parkinson

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Conserv. Genet.

    Keywords

    conservation; green turtle; hawksbill; historical biogeography; loggerhead; marine turtle population genetics; nested clade analysis; DNA-SEQUENCE DATA; MITOCHONDRIAL-DNA; CARETTA-CARETTA; CHELONIA-MYDAS; ERETMOCHELYS-IMBRICATA; HAWKSBILL TURTLE; DEMOGRAPHIC PARAMETERS; CLADISTIC-ANALYSIS; SEGREGATING SITES; CLIMATE-CHANGE; Biodiversity Conservation; Genetics & Heredity

    Abstract

    Considerable phylogeographic and population genetic research has been conducted on marine turtles. Less attention, however, has been paid to the historical patterns and processes that have led to present patterns of genetic structure, and particularly, how these populations have responded to major climatic changes in the past. To address these questions, we analyzed previously published mitochondrial haplotype data independently for three marine turtle species, the loggerhead (Caretta caretta), hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata), and green turtle (Chelonia mydas). Considering all three species, we conducted analyses on a total of 657 individuals from 36 nesting beaches in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Our results suggest that much of the contemporary genetic structure has been significantly affected by complex patterns of historical population subdivision, long-distance dispersal, and restricted geneflow. These inferences also imply that the climatic and sea level fluctuations during the Pleistocene may have had contrasting effects on genetic structure (e.g., fragmenting versus homogenizing) and on population sizes. Estimates of historical and current effective population sizes further highlight differential demographic responses across species to historical climatic cycles. Collectively, our results provide evidence for the occurrence of historical refugia through climatic cycles and complex historical metapopulation dynamics, and identify common and unique patterns of metapopulation structure across species. These historical patterns provide a basis for predictive estimates of metapopulation responses to habitat loss, population extirpation, and global climatic change.

    Journal Title

    Conservation Genetics

    Volume

    6

    Issue/Number

    2

    Publication Date

    1-1-2005

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    235

    Last Page

    251

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000229000200007

    ISSN

    1566-0621

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