Introduction
Sea turtle for seven species are in trouble, they are considered endangered or vulnerable to extinction as these animals have declined due to many threatening factors, and one of the factors is pathogens. The researchers in a study published January 21 in PLOS ONE, say there’s a couple more pathogens to worry about. There’s several report of a fungus,Fusarium solani, that it has infected sea turtle eggs and blamed for mass death rate in the nests of loogerhead sea turtle in Cape Verde in the Atlantic Ocean.
Method
Jullie Sarmiento-Ramírez of Real Jardín Botánico-CSIC in Madrid and colleagues conducted a survey of sea turtle nests in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans from 2005 to 2012 to determine how wide spread that fungus might be for all sea turtle species, except for the Kemp’s ridley.
The researchers found turtle eggs were never infected if they were sampled directly from the mama turtle, so that suggested the fungus probably came from the sand. The scientist started to look more closely at the fungus.
F. solaniis is a “species complex” which comprised of more than 60 individual fungal species, so the researchers had to build a fungal phylogenetic tree based on DNA to find out which species are causing problems for the turtle eggs.
Result
As a result of analysis, there were only two species — F. falciforme and F. keratoplasticum — were always found in dead turtle eggs. These two fungal grow well for fungi coincide at temperature range as same as temperature for the development of sea turtle embryos, the temperature range is suitable for egg incubation to be ideal for pathogen growth and colonization.
Anyway, turtle nests location also have significant relation with risk of becoming infected, since an unsuitable environmental conditions might against gas exchange through the shells of the eggs, leading to greater embryonic stress and possibly death.
As a reason, the nests in region that were inundated with water, clay, or slit have higher death rate than other region out of these conditions.
Moreover, dead eggs are probably more easily colonized by the fungi, and once the fungi get established, they can produce a lot of spores, colonize the live eggs in the nest and start killing those living eggs.
Conclusion
The inundated nests are more vulnerable is worrisome because climate change and continued habitat destruction will make sea turtles more likely to end up lay eggs in these less suitable spots. But if the programs can identify the locations where the fungal pathogens possibly become a problem, the scientist can efforts by removing eggs from those more vulnerable beaches and raise those eggs into baby turtles.