Hawksbill x loggerhead sea turtle hybrids at Bahia, Brazil: where do their offspring go?

Maira C Proietti; Julia Reisser; Luis F. Marins; Maria A. Marcovaldi; Luciano S Soares; Danielle Monteiro; Sarath E.M. Wijeratne; Charitha Pattiaratchi; Eduardo R. Secchi

doi:10.7287/peerj.preprints.159v1

Hawksbill x loggerhead sea turtle hybrids at Bahia, Brazil: where do their offspring go?

Maira C Proietti ¹, Julia Reisser², Luis F. Marins³, Maria A. Marcovaldi⁴, Luciano S Soares⁵, Danielle Monteiro^1,6, Sarath E.M. Wijeratne⁷, Charitha Pattiaratchi⁷, Eduardo R. Secchi¹

1 Instituto de Oceanografia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Rio Grande, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

2 School of Environmental Systems Engineering & Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia & CSIRO Wealth from the Oceans Flagship, Perth, Australia

3 Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Rio Grande, Brazil

4 Fundação Pró-Tamar, Praia do Forte, Bahia, Brazil

5 Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research & Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, U.S.A.

6 NGO, Núcleo de Educação e Monitoramento Ambiental, Rio Grande, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

7 School of Environmental Systems Engineering & Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.159v1

Published: 2013-12-19
Accepted: 2013-12-19

Subject Areas: Ecology, Genetics, Molecular Biology
Keywords: hybridization, Western South Atlantic, mitochondrial DNA, juvenile sea turtles, satellite-tracked buoys, particle tracking, dispersal models, juvenile sea turtles, hybridization, Western South Atlantic, particle tracking, mitochondrial DNA, dispersal models

Licence: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Cite this article: Proietti MC, Reisser J, Marins LF, Marcovaldi MA, Soares LS, Monteiro D, Wijeratne SEM, Pattiaratchi C, Secchi ER. 2013. Hawksbill x loggerhead sea turtle hybrids at Bahia, Brazil: where do their offspring go? PeerJ PrePrints 1:e159v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.159v1

Abstract

Hybridization between hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) and loggerhead (Caretta caretta) breeding groups is unusually common in Bahia state, Brazil. Such hybridization is possible because hawksbill and loggerhead nesting activities overlap temporally and spatially along the coast of this state. Nevertheless, the destinations of their offspring are not yet known. This study is the first to identify immature hawksbill x loggerhead hybrids (n = 4) from this rookery by analyzing the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of 157 immature turtles morphologically identified as hawksbills. We also compare for the first time modeled dispersal patterns of hawksbill, loggerhead, and hybrid offspring considering hatching season and oceanic phase duration of turtles. Particle movements varied according to season, with a higher proportion of particles dispersing southwards throughout loggerhead and hybrid hatching seasons, and northwards during hawksbill season. Hybrids from Bahia were not present in important hawksbill feeding grounds of Brazil, being detected only at areas more common for loggerheads. The genetic and oceanographic findings of this work indicate that these immature hybrids, which are morphologically similar to hawksbills, could be adopting behavioral traits typical of loggerheads, such as feeding in temperate waters of the western South Atlantic. Understanding the distribution, ecology, and migrations of these hybrids is essential for the development of adequate conservation and management plans.