Northward dispersal of sea kraits (Laticauda semifasciata) beyond their typical range.

Jaejin Park,Woo-Jin Choi,Il-Hun Kim,Jonathan J Fong,Tein-Shun Tsai,Daesik Park,Kyo-Soung Koo,Yan Ropert-Coudert

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0179871

Jaejin Park, Woo-Jin Choi + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179871

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Abstract

Marine reptiles are declining globally, and recent climate change may be a contributing factor. The study of sea snakes collected beyond their typical distribution range provides valuable insight on how climate change affects marine reptile populations. Recently, we collected 12 Laticauda semifasciata (11 females, 1 male) from the waters around southern South Korea—an area located outside its typical distribution range (Japan, China including Taiwan, Philippines and Indonesia). We investigated the genetic origin of Korean specimens by analyzing mitochondrial cytochrome b gene (Cytb) sequences. Six individuals shared haplotypes with a group found in Taiwan-southern Ryukyu Islands, while the remaining six individuals shared haplotypes with a group encompassing the entire Ryukyu Archipelago. These results suggest L. semifasciata moved into Korean waters from the Taiwan-Ryukyu region via the Taiwan Warm Current and/or the Kuroshio Current, with extended survival facilitated by ocean warming. We highlight several contributing factors that increase the chances that L. semifasciata establishes new northern populations beyond the original distribution range.

Highlights

Reptiles, both terrestrial [1] and marine [2,3,4], are declining on a global scale
Phylogenetic analyses verified the identity of the 16 new specimens (12 Korea, 4 Taiwan) to be L. semifasciata (S1 Fig)
We identified three different cytochrome b (Cytb) haplotypes from our specimens, all which were previously reported from the Taiwan-Ryukyu Archipelago (Fig 1); we adopted the same haplotype names as the previous study [23]

Summary

Introduction

Both terrestrial [1] and marine [2,3,4], are declining on a global scale. The major contributing factors for marine reptile declines include climate change, deterioration of habitat quality and overexploitation [5,6]. In particular for marine reptiles, ocean warming due to climate change could widely affect breeding patterns, abundance and distribution [2,7]. To understand how climate change affects marine reptile populations, data on changes in geographic distribution (e.g. records of individuals beyond the typical range) are useful. Sea turtles are the common example for population declines [3], but sea snakes are decreasing [3,8,9].

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