haddock (Caldarone 2005), flounder, and tautog (Kuropat et al. 2002). Given the applicability of

tissue nucleic acid content to growth studies in these organisms, I expected to find strong

positive correlations between growth, RNA and/or protein concentrations, and ratios among

nucleic acids and protein concentrations in green turtles.

 Contrary to my expectations, the biochemical indices I measured were neither consistently,

nor always positively, correlated with feeding treatment and growth rates. Perhaps most

surprisingly, liver RNA concentration was inversely correlated with SGR. I therefore infer that

slow-growing R turtles had more total RNA, and consequently higher putative protein synthesis

capacity, per unit of liver wet mass than fast-growing AL or R-AL turtles. Conversely, heart

RNA concentrations in this study were positively correlated with SGRbm (but not with SGRcl) as

expected, although this relationship was not strong. Growth rate had no apparent correlation with

blood RNA content.

 The pattern between DNA and growth rate was quite different from that between RNA and

growth rate. Concentrations of DNA in blood and liver (but not in heart) were both negatively

correlated with SGR, a trend that has also been noted in fish (Mercaldo-Allen et al. 2006).

Because DNA concentration is a measure of the density of nuclei and therefore correlates with

cell number, I conclude that total blood cell count increases in response to food restriction. It is

unclear which of the six predominant types of nucleated blood cells in green turtles (Wood and

Ebanks 1984) accounts for this increase in blood cell number. The typical hematological

response to caloric restriction is either no change (Lochmiller et al. 1993) or a decrease

(Maxwell et al. 1990b, Walford et al. 1992) in total leukocyte count, although the number of

circulating basophils and thrombocytes has been shown to increase in food-restricted birds

(Maxwell et al. 1990b, Maxwell et al. 1992). My DNA results could also reflect differences in