Evolutionary relationships of marine turtles: A molecular phylogeny based on nuclear and mitochondrial genes

History of upwelling in the Tropical Eastern Pacific and the paleogeography of the Isthmus of Panama

“…Pinto-Sanchez et al, 2012) records via rafting helped by the formation of an ephemeral near-complete land bridge around 10 Ma (Roth et al, 2000;Coates et al, 2003;Coates et al, 2004). Likewise, the effects of deeper water shut-off occurred long before those of shallow water as observed in the timings of separation of different organisms with different life histories (O'Dea et al, 2007a;Landau et al, 2009;Smith and Jackson, 2009) and the earlier molecular divergences of deep-water vs. shallow-water organisms (Knowlton and Weigt, 1998;Naro-Maciel et al, 2008). Terrestrial evidence points to a 'final' closure date of~2.8 Ma when an exodus of larger bodied organisms took place longitudinally, whereas most maritime evidence places final closure slightly earlier at~3.5-3 Ma (reviewed by Schmidt, 2007), a discrepancy nevertheless expected given that an effective oceanic barrier would have appeared before the formation of an intact land bridge that would have permitted the large-scale emigration of large mammals and flightless birds into their respective new habitats.…”

More-complete remains ofProcolpochelys charlestonensis(Oligocene, South Carolina), an occurrence ofEuclastes(upper Eocene, South Carolina), and their bearing on Cenozoic pancheloniid sea turtle distribution and phylogeny

“…Bremer and bootstrap support values are provided to the left and right of each clade, respectively, when applicable. Implementation of a backbone constraint that enforces a sister group relationship between Chelonia mydas (Linnaeus, 1758) and Natator depressus (Garman, 1880), which has been suggested by recent molecular data (Naro-Maciel et al, 2008), does not change the results of the analysis.…”

Connectivity, population structure, and conservation of Ecuadorian green sea turtles

“…For example, current levels of genetic diversity are potentially the result of glacial and inter-glacial paleo-oceanic periods that created opportunities for the establishment of new migratory routes (Formia et al 2006, Hamabata et al 2014. Genetic differentiation between Pacific and Atlantic basin populations is most likely the consequence of the formation of the Isthmus of Panama that imposed a barrier to gene flow between these oceans (Bowen et al 1992, Bowen & Karl 2007, Naro-Maciel et al 2008, Wallace et al 2010, Duchene et al 2012. Defining genetic clusters of green turtles across their broad geographic range has allowed delineation of Management Units (MUs) for conservation in several regions (Moritz 1994, Dethmers et al 2006, Dutton et al 2014a within broader geographic regional MUs (see Wallace et al 2010).…”