Water vole Arvicola amphibius populations have recently experienced severe decline in several European countries as a consequence of both reduction in suitable habitat and the establishment of the alien predator American mink Neovison vison. We used DNA microsatellite markers to describe the genetic structure of 14 island populations of water vole off the coast of northern Norway. We looked at ...

Aquilegia formosa and pubescens are two closely related species belonging to the columbine genus. Despite their morphological and ecological differences, previous studies have revealed a large degree of intercompatibility, as well as little sequence divergence between these two taxa. We compared the inter- and intraspecific patterns of variation for 9 nuclear loci, and found that the two specie...

A virus isolated from dead Chaerephon plicata bats collected near Kampot, Cambodia, was identified as a member of the family Bunyaviridae by electron microscopy. The only bunyavirus previously isolated from Chaerephon species bats in South-East Asia is Kaeng Khoi (KK) virus (genus Orthobunyavirus), detected in Thailand over 30 years earlier and implicated as a public health problem. Using RT-PC...

Spatial patterns of heritable phenotypic diversity reflect the relative roles of gene flow and selection in determining geographic variation within a species. We quantified color differentiation and genetic divergence among 20 populations of the red-eyed tree frog (Agalychnis callidryas) in lower Central America. Phylogenetic analyses revealed 5 well-supported mitochondrial DNA clades, and we i...

The genetic structure of a rural isolated population living in Kukës District in northern part of Albania, was analyzed through the surnames distribution. The data suitable for this analysis were obtained from Electoral Register (2009) offered by Central Election Commission of Albania. In order to estimate the population diversity, the information from the populations of 10 administrative units...

Eleven short tandem repeat loci (CSF1PO, D3S1358, D5S818, D7S820, D8S1179, D13S317, D16S539, D18S51, D21S11, TH01, and TPOX) were investigated in 232 individuals from 6 Amazonian native tribes (Tiriyó, Waiãpi, Zoé, Urubu-Kaapor, Awa-Guajá, and Parakanã). We added the new data to a database that included five previously typed native populations from the same area (Wai Wai, Gavião, Zoró, Suruí, a...

A species may overlap with a mosaic of species across its geographic range. Many types of species interaction cause selection on mating traits, but their role in generating within-species divergence has been neglected. The pattern of reproductive character displacement (RCD) has been classically attributed to reinforcement, a process driven by selection against hybridisation. Recent reinforceme...

To understand genetic variation and population dispersal in the Yangtze vole Microtus fortis calamorum distributed in the Dongting Lake region, 144 individuals were collected from six habitat patches. The mitochondrial DNA control region was sequenced and 17 haplotypes were observed. Of the six investigated populations, haplotype and nucleotide diversities of those from larger patches were high...

Variation of morphological characters in the pitviper Bothrops asper (Garman) was studied in terms of scutellation, color patterns, and landmark measures for 374 Middle American specimens. Gender, ontogeny, and geographic effects were examined for each character. In this species, females are larger than males and have more ventral and dorsal rows, and can be distinguished by some landmark varia...

Many emerging infections are RNA virus spillovers from animal reservoirs. Reservoir identification is necessary for predicting the geographic extent of infection risk, but rarely are taxonomic levels below the animal species considered as reservoir, and only key circumstances in nature and methodology allow intrinsic virus-host associations to be distinguished from simple geographic (co-)isolat...