Knowledge of genetics composition and growth stages of endangered green turtles, well as the connectivity between nesting and foraging grounds is important for effective
conservation. A total of 42 green turtles were captured at Brunei Bay with curved carapace
length ranging from 43.8 to 102.0 cm, and most sampled individuals were adults and
large juveniles. Twelve haplotypes were revealed in mitochondrial DNA control region
sequences. Most haplotypes contained identical sequences to haplotypes previously found
in rookeries in the Western Pacific, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean. Haplotype and
nucleotide diversity indices of the Brunei Bay were 0.8444 ± 0.0390 and 0.009350
0.004964, respectively. Mixed-stock analysis (for both uninformative and informative prior
weighting by population size) estimated the main contribution from the Southeast Asian
rookeries of the Sulu Sea (mean ≥ 45.31%), Peninsular Malaysia (mean ≥ 17.42%), and
Sarawak (mean ≥ 12.46%). Particularly, contribution from the Sulu Sea rookery was
estimated to be the highest and lower confidence intervals were more than zero (≥24.36%).
When estimating contributions by region rather than individual rookeries, results showed
that Brunei Bay was sourced mainly from the Southeast Asian rookeries. The results
suggest an ontogenetic shift in foraging grounds and provide conservation implications
for Southeast Asian green turtles.
2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC