New paper! Oblong turtle hybridisation
Brenton has published a new paper! The paper - ‘Oblong turtles hybridise with an introduced congener and display a size-heterozygosity relationship’ was published in Conservation Genetics. The paper was co-authored by Dr Anthony Santoro, April Sturm, and Prof. Stephen Beatty from Murdoch University and Dr Kailah Thorn from the WA Museum. This paper represents a substantial amount of fieldwork, DNA sequencing, and data analysis, and shows that freshwater turtles from eastern Australia are being introduced to southwestern Australia where they breed with local native oblong turtles. The paper also discusses other invasive freshwater turtle species in WA, including the Murray River turtle and red-eared slider, and the potential impacts that they may have on local ecosystems. This paper represents a substantial improvement in our understanding of invasive turtles in Australia.
You can read the paper here
