Significant difference of temperature-dependent sex determination between French Guiana (Atlantic) and Playa Grande (Costa-Rica, Pacific) leatherbacks ( Dermochelys coriacea)

Abstract

Temperature-dependent sex determination has been recently characterized for leatherbacks ( Dermochelys coriacea) from Playa Grande, on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The authors concluded that the pattern of TSD in leatherbacks from Pacific Costal Rica is the same as for leatherbacks from French Guiana, in the Atlantic. However, no statistical tests were performed to validate their conclusion. Here, we use a maximum-likelihood test to look for a possible difference between the populations. We found that the pattern of temperature-dependent sex determination in Atlantic and Pacific leatherbacks was significantly different. The temperature producing 50 % of each sex was not significantly different in both groups, but the range of temperatures producing both sexes was significantly narrower for the French Guiana population. We hypothesize that this difference could reflect a lower genetic polymorphism for temperature-dependent sex determination in this population. A low genetic diversity in the Guiana population compared to the Playa Grande population has been already observed for mitochondrial haplotypes. Our results emphasize the importance of statistical analyses in studies of temperaturedependent sex determination.