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Population subdivision in hawksbill turtles nesting on Barbados, West Indies, determined from mitochondrial DNA control region sequences

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Abstract

A new mitochondrial DNA control region survey of the Barbados hawksbill nesting population was undertaken using larger sample sizes, reanalysis of previously reported samples, and new primers that increase the fragment length sequenced. This work revealed that haplotypes originally identified as endemic to Barbados were misread sequences. Genetic variants and a geographic subdivision on a finer scale than has previously been recorded for sea turtles were identified between the Barbados leeward and windward coasts, indicating the need for sampling at multiple sites to reveal comprehensive genetic variation at national scales. Using the updated haplotype profiles to re-estimate Barbados’ contribution to Caribbean hawksbill foraging grounds indicated a presence several-fold larger than previously calculated; a result congruent with the breeding population being one of the largest in the region.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Anna Bass, Peter Dutton, Robin Leroux, and Erin LaCasella for providing the original 1992 samples, stored in the NOAA-Fisheries Marine Turtle tissue archive at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, La Jolla California, for re-analysis; Patrick Leighton and the personnel of the Barbados Sea Turtle Project (UWI) who assisted with the collection of tissue samples; Emma Harrison of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation; John Candy of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Pacific Biological Station, British Columbia, Canada and Savita Shanker of the DNA Sequencing Core, University of Florida, Gainesville. The faculty and students of UWI’s Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (CERMES) provided laboratory facilities and advice. Funding from the UWI Office of Research and a Pew Marine Conservation Fellowship to Julia Horrocks and grant FOSEMARNAT-2004-01-353 from the Mexican National Science and Technology Commission (CONACYT) to Alberto Abreu-Grobois are gratefully acknowledged. We also wish to acknowledge use of the Maptool program (seaturtle.org) for map graphics in this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological and Chemical Sciences, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados, BB11000, West Indies

    Darren C. Browne & J. A. Horrocks

  2. Unidad Académica Mazatlán, Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, UNAM, Apartado Postal 811, 82000, Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico

    F. A. Abreu-Grobois

Authors
  1. Darren C. Browne
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  2. J. A. Horrocks
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  3. F. A. Abreu-Grobois
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Darren C. Browne.

Appendices

Appendices

Appendix 1 Updated haplotype frequencies for Barbados rookeries from the leeward and windward coasts based on samples collected during the 2002, 2004–2005 nesting seasons, and the re-sequenced samples collected in 1992 and analyzed by Bass et al. (1996)
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Appendix 2
figure 2

UPGMA consensus tree of genetic relationships (conventional pairwise F ST values) between evaluated Caribbean hawksbill rookeries. The number on each branch indicates the percentage of times the partition of the populations into the two sets which are separated by that branch occurred among the 1,000 bootstrap trees

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Browne, D.C., Horrocks, J.A. & Abreu-Grobois, F.A. Population subdivision in hawksbill turtles nesting on Barbados, West Indies, determined from mitochondrial DNA control region sequences. Conserv Genet 11, 1541–1546 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-009-9883-3

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