Blood chemistry reference values for two ecologically distinct populations of foraging green turtles, eastern Indian Ocean

Changes in Plasma Chemistry and Reproductive Output of Nesting Leatherbacks

“…Aspartate aminotransferase was lower in turtles at Playa Moaba (125.9 6 3.27 U/L, SE, n 5 55) than those in Gabon (165.0 6 2.26 U/L, SE, n 5 10) and the northwestern Atlantic (286 6 63.4 U/L, SE, n 5 18), or in comparison with previously reported concentrations in Green Sea Turtles (Bolten and Bjorndal, 1992;Hasbú n et al, 1998;Whiting et al, 2007), Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles, and Loggerhead Sea Turtles (Carminati et al, 1994;Day et al, 2007;George, 1997), but still within the interval of chelonians reported elsewhere (interval, 100-350 U/L; Campbell, 1996). Although little is known about the tissue distribution of AST in sea turtles, AST concentrations are not considered to be organ-specific in reptiles (Campbell, 2004;Day et al, 2007;Evans, 1996).…”

“…Blood biochemistry parameters and hematological values have been reported in adult and juvenile Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas; Aguirre and Balazs, 2000;Bolten and Bjorndal, 1992;Hasbú n et al, 1998), adult foraging Green Sea Turtles (Whiting et al, 2007), adult and subadult Loggerhead Sea Turtles (Caretta caretta) in the wild and captivity (Day et al, 2007;Kakizoe et al, 2007;Lutz and Dunbar-Cooper, 1987), and in Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles (Lepidochelys kempii) in the wild and captivity (Carminati et al, 1994;Stabenau et al, 1991;Turnbull et al, 2000). Even though there are numerous studies on blood indices in cheloniid turtles, there are few published studies (Deem et al, 2006;Innis et al, 2010) on blood indices of the Leatherback Sea Turtle, which is the sole surviving species in the family Dermochelyidae.…”

The current state and future directions of marine turtle toxicology research

“…Swarthout et al (2010) suggest that the differences could be due to differences in the order of magnitude of contaminant concentrations. Factors other than contaminant levels such as sex, age (Hamann et al, 2006), diet, foraging ground (Whiting et al, 2007), species, genetics, (Herbst and Jacobson, 2002), reproductive status (Plot et al, 2013) and overall health (Flint et al, 2014), may also influence plasma chemistry and haematological values, further contributing to discrepancies between publications.…”

“…Reference intervals for healthy marine turtles have been established for a number of clinical health parameters (Aguirre and Balazs, 2000;Deem et al, 2006;Hamann et al, 2006;Whiting et al, 2007;Arthur et al, 2008;Casal et al, 2009;Flint et al, 2010). Reference intervals between publications are largely similar with some minor discrepancies, which may result from differences in locality, age distribution, sampling and analytical methods, and sample size.…”

Health condition of juvenile Chelonia mydas related to fibropapillomatosis in southeast Brazil

“…Thus, total protein and cholesterol can be good proxies for nutritional health (Whiting et al 2007) and can be useful as health indicators and should be included in basic biochemical analyses of green turtle population health monitoring. Urea and the urea:creatinine ratio decrease as the BCI increases.…”