AEROBIC BLOOD CULTURES AND COMPARISON TO CLINICAL FINDINGS OF FREE-RANGING GREEN TURTLES (CHELONIA MYDAS) IN EAST CENTRAL FLORIDA.

Positive blood cultures have been identified in debilitated, stranded, and deceased green turtles (Chelonia mydas), suggestive of septicemia. Interpretation of these results is often difficult because multiple studies have previously identified bacteremia in clinically healthy reptiles. In this study, paired blood cultures and skin cultures obtained after aseptic preparation of the venipuncture site were collected from 50 immature free-ranging green turtles from Port Canaveral, Florida. Blood culture results were compared with health status (apparently healthy versus unhealthy, based on physical examination findings and appropriate body condition), date of collection, presence of external fibropapillomatosis, healed or unhealed injuries, and presence of barnacles. Weight, body condition score, body condition index, morphometric measures, volume of blood collected, and body temperature were compared between blood culture-positive and blood culture-negative turtles. Positive blood cultures were identified in 14% (7 of 50) of all turtles, including 15.6% (5 of 32) of apparently healthy turtles. Vibrio spp., Bacillus megaterium, Cellulomonas sp., and Staphylococcus pasteuri were isolated in blood culture from apparently healthy individuals. There was a significant association (P = 0.048) between positive skin cultures and positive blood cultures, but isolates obtained were consistently different between paired results. There was no significant association (P > 0.05) between blood culture results and health status, evidence of healed or unhealed injuries, external fibropapillomatosis, or presence of barnacles. Based on the results of this study, positive blood cultures suggestive of nonclinical bacteremia may be present in apparently healthy green turtles. The results of this study will aid the attending clinician in interpretation of blood culture results of apparently healthy or presumed septicemic captive and rehabilitating green turtles as part of the conservation and population recovery of this threatened species.

Climate change, marine environments, and the US Endangered species act.

Climate change is expected to be a top driver of global biodiversity loss in the 21st century. It poses new challenges to conserving and managing imperiled species, particularly in marine and estuarine ecosystems. The use of climate-related science in statutorily driven species management, such as under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), is in its early stages. This article provides an overview of ESA processes, with emphasis on the mandate to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to manage listed marine, estuarine, and anadromous species. Although the ESA is specific to the United States, its requirements are broadly relevant to conservation planning. Under the ESA, species, subspecies, and "distinct population segments" may be listed as either endangered or threatened, and taking of most listed species (harassing, harming, pursuing, wounding, killing, or capturing) is prohibited unless specifically authorized via a case-by-case permit process. Government agencies, in addition to avoiding take, must ensure that actions they fund, authorize, or conduct are not likely to jeopardize a listed species' continued existence or adversely affect designated critical habitat. Decisions for which climate change is likely to be a key factor include: determining whether a species should be listed under the ESA, designating critical habitat areas, developing species recovery plans, and predicting whether effects of proposed human activities will be compatible with ESA-listed species' survival and recovery. Scientific analyses that underlie these critical conservation decisions include risk assessment, long-term recovery planning, defining environmental baselines, predicting distribution, and defining appropriate temporal and spatial scales. Although specific guidance is still evolving, it is clear that the unprecedented changes in global ecosystems brought about by climate change necessitate new information and approaches to conservation of imperiled species. El Cambio Climático, los Ecosistemas Marinos y el Acta Estadunidense de Especies en Peligro.

Incorporating climate science in applications of the US endangered species act for aquatic species.

Aquatic species are threatened by climate change but have received comparatively less attention than terrestrial species. We gleaned key strategies for scientists and managers seeking to address climate change in aquatic conservation planning from the literature and existing knowledge. We address 3 categories of conservation effort that rely on scientific analysis and have particular application under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA): assessment of overall risk to a species; long-term recovery planning; and evaluation of effects of specific actions or perturbations. Fewer data are available for aquatic species to support these analyses, and climate effects on aquatic systems are poorly characterized. Thus, we recommend scientists conducting analyses supporting ESA decisions develop a conceptual model that links climate, habitat, ecosystem, and species response to changing conditions and use this model to organize analyses and future research. We recommend that current climate conditions are not appropriate for projections used in ESA analyses and that long-term projections of climate-change effects provide temporal context as a species-wide assessment provides spatial context. In these projections, climate change should not be discounted solely because the magnitude of projected change at a particular time is uncertain when directionality of climate change is clear. Identifying likely future habitat at the species scale will indicate key refuges and potential range shifts. However, the risks and benefits associated with errors in modeling future habitat are not equivalent. The ESA offers mechanisms for increasing the overall resilience and resistance of species to climate changes, including establishing recovery goals requiring increased genetic and phenotypic diversity, specifying critical habitat in areas not currently occupied but likely to become important, and using adaptive management. Incorporación de las Ciencias Climáticas en las Aplicaciones del Acta Estadunidense de Especies en Peligro para Especies Acuáticas.

Modeling juvenile sea turtle bycatch risk in commercial and recreational fisheries.

Understanding the drivers of fisheries bycatch is essential for limiting its impacts on vulnerable species. Here we present a model to estimate the relative magnitude of sea turtle bycatch in major coastal fisheries across the southeastern US based on spatiotemporal variation in fishing effort and the simulated distributions of juvenile Kemp's ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) and green (Chelonia mydas) sea turtles recruiting from oceanic to nearshore habitats. Over the period modeled (1996-2017), bycatch in recreational fisheries was estimated to be greater than the sum of bycatch that occurred in commercial fisheries that have historically been considered high risks to turtles (e.g., those using trawls, gillnets, and bottom longlines). Prioritizing engagement with recreational anglers to reduce bycatch could be especially beneficial to sea turtle populations. Applying lessons learned from efforts to protect turtles in commercial fisheries may help meet the challenges that arise from the large, diffuse recreational fishing sector.

Sea Snacks from DNA Tracks: Using DNA Metabarcoding to Characterize the Diet of Green Turtles (Chelonia Mydas).

The green turtle (Chelonia mydas) is a circumglobal species with a wide dietary breadth that varies among regions and life history stages. Comprehensive understanding of foraging ecology over space and time is critical to inform conservation and management of this species and its habitats. Here, we used DNA metabarcoding to test candidate primer sets with 39 gut content homogenates from stranded green turtles (FL, USA) to identify primer sets that maximize detection of food items and specificity of taxonomic classifications. We tested six existing universal primer sets to detect plants, animals, and eukaryotes more broadly (CO1, 18SV1-V3, 18SV4, rbcL, UPA, ITS). The CO1 and 18SV4 primer sets produced the greatest number of dietary amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) and unique taxonomic classifications, and they were the only primer sets to amplify taxa from all three kingdoms relevant to green turtle diet (Animalia, Chromista, and Plantae). Even though the majority of CO1-derived reads were of host origin (>90%), this primer set still produced the largest number of dietary ASVs classified to species among the six primer sets. However, because the CO1 primer set failed to detect both vascular plants and green algae, we do not recommend the use of this primer set on its own to characterize green turtle diet. Instead, our findings support previous research highlighting the utility of using multiple primer sets, specifically targeting CO1 and the V4 region of the 18S gene, as doing so will provide the most comprehensive understanding of green turtle diet. More generally, our results highlight the importance of primer and loci selection and the need to validate primer sets against the study system of interest. The addition of DNA metabarcoding with optimized primer sets to the sea turtle researcher's toolbox will both increase our understanding of foraging ecology and better inform science-based conservation and ecosystem management.