Abstract
The Dugong dugon (dugong) and Chelonia mydas (green sea turtle) are economically and culturally significant marine mega-herbivores whose populations are declining globally. Capture of these animals for study is challenging and stressful for the animals. Ecological questions can be answered using faeces, which can be collected floating on the water’s surface. However, green turtle and dugong faeces are visually indistinguishable. Specific PCR primer pairs were developed based on the mitochondrial control region of each species. We were able to determine species of origin using DNA extracted, amplified and sequenced from faeces. This provides a valuable tool for non-invasive taxonomic identification to assist the conservation of these vulnerable and endangered species.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Jenny Seddon’s team at The Faculty of Science, University of Queensland for providing the dugong skin sample, and Helene Marsh and Toba Aquarium in Japan for donating four dugong faecal samples. Funding was provided by the Queensland Government National Environmental Science Program (NESP), and laboratory equipment was provided by the Australian Tropical Herbarium, at James Cook University, Cairns.
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Ethics were approved by The University of Queensland Animal Ethics Committee and James Cook University Ethics Committee. Dugong skin collection ethics number: SBS/290/11. Green sea turtle skin collection ethics number: A2416.
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12686_2020_1187_MOESM1_ESM.jpg
Supplementary material 1 (JPEG 174 kb) Supplementary Figure 1: Agarose gel showing PCR products amplified from eight faecal samples using primer pairs for Chelonia mydas (green sea turtle) and Dugong dugon (dugong). Samples RG3, RG9 and DP1 yielded a band for the dugong primers but not for the green sea turtle primers. Samples RG5 and RG8 produced a band for the green sea turtle primers but not for the dugong primer pair; a large non-specific PCR product was produced in sample DP1 when using turtle primers, however, this band did not yield any readable sequence. A band could only be amplified from sea turtle tissue (T-DNA) and dugong tissue (D-DNA) samples using their corresponding primers. All faecal masses collected in-situ were from within Australian waters, from Bing Bong in the Northern Territory, while known dugong samples were collected from a captive dugong at Toba Aquarium, Japan.
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Tol, S.J., Harrison, M., Groom, R. et al. Using DNA to distinguish between faeces of Dugong dugon and Chelonia mydas: non-invasive sampling for IUCN-listed marine megafauna. Conservation Genet Resour 13, 115–117 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-020-01187-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-020-01187-z