<b>Genetic diversity of the Green Turtle (Testudines: Cheloniidae: <I>Chelonia mydas</I> (Linnaeus, 1758)) population nesting at Kosgoda Rookery, Sri Lanka</b>

Abstract

tt fi n g a tt K o s g o d a R o o k e r y , S r fi L a n k a E .M . L . E k a n a y a k e , T . K a p u r u s fi n g h e , M .M . S am a n , D . S . R a tt h n a k um a r a , P . S am a r aw e e r a & R . S . R a j a k a r u n a 2 6 J u n e 2 0 1 7 | V o l . 9 | N o . 6 | P p . 1 0 2 6 1 -1 0 2 6 8 1 0 . 1 1 6 0 9 / j o tt . 2 7 9 7 . 9 . 6 . 1 0 2 6 1 -1 0 2 6 8 T h r e a tt e n e d T a x a T h e J o u r n a l o f T h r e a tt e n e d T a x a fi s d e d fi c a tt e d tt o b u fi l d fi n g e v fi d e n c e f o r c o n s e r v a fi o n g l o b a l l y b y p u b l fi s h fi n g p e e r -r e v fi ew e d a r fi c l e s o n l fi n e e v e r y m o n tt h a tt a r e a s o n a b l y r a p fi d r a tt e a tt www . tt h r e a tt e n e d tt a x a . o r g. A l l a r fi c l e s p u b l fi s h e d fi n J o T T a r e r e g fi s tt e r e d u n d e r C r e a fi v e C omm o n s A tt r fi b u fi o n 4 . 0 I n tt e r n a fi o n a l L fi c e n s e u n l e s s o tt h e rw fi s e m e n fi o n e d . J o T T a l l ow s u n r e s tt r fi c tt e d u s e o f a r fi c l e s fi n a n y m e d fi um , r e p r o d u c fi o n , a n d d fi s tt r fi b u fi o n b y p r o v fi d fi n g a d e q u a tt e c r e d fi tt tt o tt h e a u tt h o r s a n d tt h e s o u r c e o f p u b l fi c a fi o n .O P E N A C C E S S P a r tt n e r www . tt h r e a tt e n e d tt a x a . o r g I S S N 0 9 7 4 -7 9 0 7 ( O n l fi n e ) | I S S N 0 9 7 4 -7 8 9 3 ( P r fi n tt ) Competing interests:The authors declare no competing interests.Author Details: see end of this article.Author Contribution: EMLE: Acquired and analyzed data and wrote the manuscript; TK: Supervised the data collection in the field; MMS and DSR: Collected data and samples from the field; PS: Contributed to study design and interpretation of data, supervised DNA work; RSR: Developed the concept, supervised the lab work and interpretation of data, edited and revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript. Acknowledgements:We thank the Turtle Conservation Project (TCP) staff for their technical support and the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), Sri Lanka for granting permission to carry out this study, Nancy FitzSimmons and M.P. Jensen for their valuable advice and guidance during the study, and Andrea Phillott for editing the manuscript. We also thank the National Science Abstract: We determined the genetic diversity of the Green Turtle Chelonia mydas (Linneaus, 1758) nesting at Kosgoda rookery, the second largest sea turtle aggregation on the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka. Skin tissue samples were collected from 68 nesting females and genetic diversity was estimated using six microsatellite loci. High genetic diversity was observed within the population as all loci analyzed were highly polymorphic with a total of 149 alleles observed. The mean number of alleles per locus was 24.7 and the mean observed and expected heterozygosity across all loci were 0.75 and 0.93, respectively. It appears that five...

Revisiting the genetic diversity and population structure of the endangered Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas) breeding populations in the Xisha (Paracel) Islands, South China Sea

“…Genetic diversity is an important feature of a species, reflecting its potential to adapt to environmental change ( Ekanayake et al, 2017 ). Sea turtles are long-lived organisms, and their life histories are marked by ontogenic habitat shifts and large-scale migrations ( Bowen & Karl, 2007 ).…”