Fig 1.
Location of the sampling beach where olive ridley turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) lay their eggs during arribada events. The map is a representation based on openstreetmap cartography distributed under CC BY-SA 2.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/). Part of this work is also based on "brosen windrose" image (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brosen_windrose.svg#filelinks) distributed under CC BY 2.5 license.
Table 1.
Epibiotic macro fauna found on 55 nesting olive ridley turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) from Ostional, Pacific coast of Costa Rica.
Fig 2.
Olive ridley during the mass nesting event (arribada) at Ostional beach, Costa Rica in October 2014.
a) Females emerged from the ocean after congregating offshore. b & c) Nesting turtle. Brownish biofilm covers the entire carapace but macroepibionts (e.g. macroalgae) prevail on its posterior parts. d) Olive ridley and epizoic barnacles.
Table 2.
Diatom taxa.
Fig 3.
Scanning electron micrographs of epizoic diatoms associated with olive ridley carapace.
a, b & c) Amphora spp. assemblage. d) Amphora sp. 1, side view. e) Amphora sp. 1, ventral view. f) Amphora sp. 1, dorsal view. g& h) Amphora sp. 2. Scale bars: a = 50 μm, b & c = 20 μm, d-h = 5 μm.
Fig 4.
Scanning electron micrographs of epizoic diatoms associated with olive ridley carapace.
a-e) Achnanthes cf. pseudogroenlandica var. phinneyi: a) monospecific cluster of A. cf. pseudogroenlandica var. phinneyi growing on the turtle carapace, b) internal view of the raphe valve, c) chain of the attached cells, d) single cell, external view, e) details of the central are, f) Achnanthes sp. 1, a single cell in girdle view. g-i) Haslea sp. 1: g) entire cell in external view, h) details of the central area, i) details of the raphe endings. Scale bars: a = 50 μm, b & g = 5 μm, c, d & f = 10 μm, e, h & I = 1 μm.
Fig 5.
Scanning electron micrographs of epizoic diatoms associated with olive ridley carapace.
a-c) Proschkinia sp.: a) valve view, b) diagonal view, c) girdle view. d & e) Tripterion sp. 1. f-i) Tripterion sp. 2: f) valve view (external), g) girdle view, h) valve view (internal), i) cluster of cells attached to the turtle carapace. Scale bars: a-c &i = 5 μm, d-h = 1 μm.
Fig 6.
Scanning electron micrographs of epizoic diatoms associated with olive ridley carapace.
a-c) Navicula cf. rusticensis: a) valve view, b) details of the central area, c) details of external raphe ending.d-f) Navicula sp. 1: d) valve view, e) cell immersed in the mucilage tube, f) details of the central area. g-i) Nitzschia sp. 1: g) diagonal view, h) valve view (external), i) valve view (internal). Scale bars = 1 μm.
Fig 7.
Diatom growth form percent contribution to total diatom abundance.
Table 3.
Diatom indices.