Ghafoor, Dawood, Hayakijkosol, Orachun, Ewels, Carla, and Kinobe, Robert (2025) Characterisation of the Gastrointestinal Microbiome of Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas): A Systematic Review. Animals, 15 (11). 1594.

Preview

PDF (Published Version) - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (936kB) | Preview

Abstract

The gut microbiome of sea turtles is essential for their ecological resilience and adaptation to environmental stressors. We hypothesised that different gut microbial profiles existed between green sea turtles kept in captivity and those in the wild. The aim of this systematic review was to determine dominant bacterial phyla in the gut microbiomes of wild and captive green sea turtles. Comparison of the top four bacterial phyla revealed that Bacillota was the most abundant phylum in captive turtles (40.9–87.5%), but it only ranked second (3.5–57.8%) in wild turtles. Bacteroidota had comparable relative abundance in captive (8.7–45.6%) and wild (3.6–43.1%) populations. By contrast, the relative abundance of Pseudomonadota was higher in wild turtles (6.2–68.1%) compared to the captive population (0.1–6.6%). Verrucomicrobiota was less prevalent in wild and captive populations, with relative abundances ranging from 0.28 to 5.4% and 2.3 to 7.2%, respectively. These findings highlight a putative gut microbial shift between wild and captive green sea turtle populations. This shift may be shaped by variations in environmental factors in captivity or the wild. Nonetheless, the significance of these putative changes is still unknown; the potential to use microbial shifts to guide management, rehabilitation, and conservation of green sea turtles is promising, but remains limited.

Item ID:	86470
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2076-2615
Copyright Information:	© 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Date Deposited:	04 Aug 2025 22:56
FoR Codes:	30 AGRICULTURAL, VETERINARY AND FOOD SCIENCES > 3009 Veterinary sciences > 300903 Veterinary bacteriology @ 70% 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4102 Ecological applications > 410203 Ecosystem function @ 30%
SEO Codes:	18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1805 Marine systems and management > 180504 Marine biodiversity @ 60% 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280111 Expanding knowledge in the environmental sciences @ 40%
Downloads:	Total: 2 Last 12 Months: 2
	More Statistics