Biology session

Due to habitat destruction and fragmentation populations of a given species become geographically isolated, and in the absence of migration paths these populations become genetically separated. This can lead to reduced genetic diversity and in the long turn it may cause the extinction of the species.

We studied the genetic structure of the Alpine newt (Ichthyosaura alpestris) in the higher region of the Mátra Mountains. The main objectives of this study were to investigate 1) how the geographic distance affects the genetic structure of the population, and 2) whether the main road nr. 24 serves as a barrier to gene flow between reproductive sites.

Tissue samples from a total of 130 specimens were collected in 15 localities and ten microsatellite loci were used to characterize the genetic diversity of each sampling site and genetic structure of the whole Mátra population.

Our results showed that the alpine newt population of Mátra Mountains is genetically weakly structured. According to the results of AMOVA the difference between the sampling sites is explained only by the 4% of the total genetic variance, and most of the variance (96%) can be observed within the sampling sites. The genetic distances between the sampling sites correlate with the geographical distances, but the population is split into a western and an eastern clade with a mixed group between them. Based on our results, the barrier effect of the main road nr. 24 could not be detected.