MTN 60:14-15 Bluegreen and Red Algae Identified from Florida Loggerhead Turtle

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Bluegreen and Red Algae Identified from Florida Loggerhead Turtle

C. Kenneth Dodd, Jr.¹ and Clinton J. Dawes²
¹National Ecology Research Center, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service 412 N.E. 16th Avenue, Room 250, Gainesville, Florida 32601 USA
²Department of Biology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620 USA

Algae are common symbionts of loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta). Six species of algae are reported in the literature on European loggerheads, and reports of unidentified algae on loggerheads occur from the Indian Ocean, Australia, and Greece (reviewed by Dodd, 1988). No algae apparently have been reported from C. caretta in the Atlantic Ocean of the Western Hemisphere, although the red alga Polysiphonia carettia was described from a loggerhead caught off Catalina Island, California, in the Pacific Western Hemisphere (Hollenberg, 1971).

On 26 June 1992, CKD collected algae samples from a nesting loggerhead (89.3 cm straight-line carapace length) 14.5 km south of Indialantic, Brevard County, Florida on the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge. Samples were taken from the left posterior pleural scutes and preserved (25% Transeau's fluid, 75% sample plus water). The dominant alga was the red alga Herposiphonia tenella, a polysiphonous alga with 6+ pericentral cells, dorsi-ventral growth, branches erect with indeterminate and alternating subbranches, and basal and erect axes 40-50µ in diameter. A secondary alga, the bluegreen Lyngbya semiplana, was entangled with H. tenella. L. semiplana is filamentous with trichomes 8-10µ in diameter. It lacks heterocysts and akinetes, has a clear sheath, and possesses terminal cells with slightly thickened outer walls.

H. tenella is found from Bermuda and North Carolina south to Brazil, generally growing on algae, rocks, mangrove roots, or other substrates in protected shallow water (Taylor, 1960). L. semiplana is found worldwide as an epiphyte on algae or sea grasses, or growing on solid substrate (Humm and Wicks, 1980). There are no previous reports of either species growing on sea turtles.

Dodd, C. K., Jr. 1988. Synopsis of the Biological Data on the Loggerhead Sea Turtle, Caretta caretta (Linnaeus 1758). U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biol. Rept. 88(14):1-110.

Hollenberg, G. J. 1971. Phycological notes. V. New species of marine algae from California. Phycologia 10:11-16.

Humm, H. J. and S. R. Wicks. 1980. Introduction and Guide to the Marine Bluegreen Algae. J. Wiley and Sons, New York, New York.

Taylor, W. R. 1960. Marine Algae of the Eastern Tropical and Subtropical Coasts of the Americas. Univ. Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan.