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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Megafauna
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1569466
This article is part of the Research TopicPopulation Structure and Connectivity of Marine Turtles in the Pacific and Indian OceansView all 15 articles
Population structure and genetic diversity of leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) in Bird's Head Seascape, Papua-Indonesia
Provisionally accepted
Abdul Hamid A. Toha1
Deasy Lontoh1
Fitryanti Pakiding1Andhika P Prasetyo2
Lisa Marie Komoroske3
Peter H. Dutton4*- 1State University of Papua, Manokwari, Special Region of West Papua, Indonesia
- 2National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Bogor, Jakarta, Indonesia
- 3University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, United States
- 4Southwest Fisheries Science Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, La Jolla, United States
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Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) populations are endangered globally and there is a need to better understand their genetic diversity and structure in order to inform conservation efforts. Most nesting in the western Pacific is concentrated in the Bird's Head Seascape (BHS) region of West Papua, Indonesia. Previous genetic assessment based on limited mtDNA sequences inadequately represented the demographic complexity that is now evident for West Papua leatherbacks. In this study, we quantified the genetic diversity, connectivity and structure for leatherback populations in the BHS by integrating nuclear and mitochondrial(mt) DNA data. We compared 763-bp sequences of the mtDNA control region and data from 17 microsatellite loci at two beaches, Jeen Yessa (JY) and Jeen Syuab (JS) that represent temporally separated nesting populations. We then leveraged reducedrepresentation (RAD-capture) and whole genome resequencing approaches to generate genome-wide SNPs. We detected low genetic diversity for all datatypes. A total of 11 mtDNA haplotypes were identified, including two new haplotypes and three previously reported from Atlantic populations. Pairwise tests of haplotype and genotype (microsatellite) frequencies find no evidence of structure between the JY (boreal summer) and JS (boreal winter) populations. Furthermore, admixture and principal components analyses of genomic SNP datasets did not identify any clear genetic structure. These results suggest that the BH leatherbacks represent a single genetic stock based on current criteria for defining population Management Units for sea turtles. This study provides the basis for further population structure assessment that includes other nesting sites in Indonesia and the broader western Pacific.
Keywords: Population Genetics, Sea Turtles, mtDNA, microsatellites, RAD-capture, Whole genome resequencing
Received: 31 Jan 2025; Accepted: 07 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Toha, Lontoh, Pakiding, Prasetyo, Komoroske and Dutton. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Peter H. Dutton, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, La Jolla, United States
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