Green sea turtles and plastic: gut bacteria resembling those in trash, Rio study finds

A study carried out in Rio de Janeiro got me thinking about how much plastic waste affects even the microorganisms living inside marine reptiles. The study, conducted at Itaipu Beach in Niterói, compared bacteria from green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) with those found on pieces of plastic, in seawater and on algae from the area.

The result was surprising: the turtles' bacteria were more similar to those on the plastic than to those on the algae they eat, or to those in the water. According to researcher Filipe Berbeti of the Federal Fluminense University, the literature had suggested that an animal's microbiota should resemble that of its food. Seven bacterial types were shared with plastic waste, including Vibrio, Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Chryseobacterium and Clostridium.

These groups include species that can cause disease in animals and people. However, the researcher is careful to say that no analysis linked these bacteria to illness in the turtles, and that identification only reached the genus level, so it cannot be said that any of them caused pathogenic effects. The study used five turtles collected by the Aruanã project, which works on conservation in Guanabara Bay, and it was published in Environmental Pollution in August.

I appreciated the authors' honesty about the limits of their work. For anyone who follows reptiles, it is a reminder that turtles may also act as carriers of marine bacteria as they migrate.

Source: Super / Agência Brasil