Important indicators of population health needed for large-scale sea turtle population recovery efforts include demographics, disease and mortality trends, condition indices, and baseline blood data. With this comprehensive health assessment of adult female green sea turtles Chelonia mydas nesting on Juno Beach, Florida, USA, we (1) established baseline health indices; (2) identified individuals with evidence of infection by chelonid alphaherpes viruses 5 and 6 (ChHV5, ChHV6), which are implicated in fibropapillomatosis and respiratory and skin disease, respectively; and (3) compared measured health indices between turtles that did versus those that did not test positive for ChHV5 and/or ChHV6. All 60 turtles included in the study were in good body condition with no external fibropapillomatosis tumors. Hematological and biochemical reference intervals were established. Via quantitative PCR (qPCR), 5/60 turtles (8%) tested positive for ChHV5, and all turtles were negative for ChHV6. Of 41 turtles tested for antibodies to ChHV5 and ChHV6, 29% and 15% tested positive, respectively, and 10% tested positive for antibodies to both viruses. Notably, there were no statistically significant differences between health variables for nesting turtles that tested positive for ChHV5 DNA versus those that tested negative; and also no differences between turtles that tested positive for ChHV5 or ChHV6 antibodies and those that did not. This suggests that these viruses are enzootically stable in Florida’s adult green turtles. This study provides a health profile of nesting green turtles in southeastern Florida applicable to temporal and spatial investigations of this and other populations.

中文翻译：

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在佛罗里达州东南部筑巢的绿海龟 Chelonia mydas 的综合健康评估

大规模海龟种群恢复工作所需的重要种群健康指标包括人口统计、疾病和死亡率趋势、状况指数和基线血液数据。通过对美国佛罗里达州朱诺海滩筑巢的成年雌性绿海龟 Chelonia mydas 的综合健康评估，我们 (1) 建立了基线健康指数；(2) 鉴定出有甲型甲状疱疹病毒 5 和 6（ChHV5、ChHV6）感染证据的个体，这两种病毒分别与纤维乳头状瘤病以及呼吸道和皮肤病有关；(3) 比较了 ChHV5 和/或 ChHV6 检测呈阳性的海龟与未检测出阳性的海龟之间测量的健康指数。研究中包括的所有 60 只海龟身体状况良好，没有外部纤维乳头瘤病肿瘤。建立了血液学和生化参考区间。通过定量 PCR (qPCR)，5/60 只海龟 (8%) 的 ChHV5 检测呈阳性，所有海龟的 ChHV6 均呈阴性。在检测 ChHV5 和 ChHV6 抗体的 41 只海龟中，分别有 29% 和 15% 检测出阳性，10% 检测出两种病毒的抗体阳性。值得注意的是，ChHV5 DNA 检测呈阳性的筑巢龟与检测呈阴性的筑巢龟的健康变量之间没有统计学上的显着差异。ChHV5 或 ChHV6 抗体检测呈阳性的海龟与未检测出阳性的海龟之间也没有差异。这表明这些病毒在佛罗里达州的成年绿海龟中是稳定的。