Literaturdatenbank
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Pereira, P., Veríssimo, J., Teixeira, J., & Velo-Antón, G. , Genetic characterization of portuguese populations of the european pond turtle (emys orbicularis) and the geographic allocation of unknown individuals. Unpublished paper presented at XII Congresso Luso Espanhol de Herpetologia.
Added by: Admin (06 Jan 2014 18:23:04 UTC) |
| Resource type: Conference Paper BibTeX citation key: Pereira2012 View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: Emydidae, Emys orbicularis, Habitat - habitat, Schildkröten - turtles + tortoises, Südwesteuropa - South-Western Europa, Trachemys scripta Creators: Pereira, Teixeira, Velo-Antón, Veríssimo Collection: XII Congresso Luso Espanhol de Herpetologia |
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| Abstract |
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The clear regression of the European pond turtle, Emys orbicularis (Linnaeus, 1758), is of great concern to the scientific community and conservationists all over its wide distribution. In the Iberian Peninsula, this freshwater turtle is classified as Endangered (Portugal) and Vulnerable (Spain). Its dependency on wetlands is one of its major threats vulnerabilities, as wetland drainage for agricultural or urban needs are a common practice. Also, the recent invasion by Trachemys scripta threatens to take over the freshwater ponds and compete both for basking areas and for food. In order to invert this trend the LIFE- Trachemys project was initiated in 2011. Its main goal is to eradicate the invasive populations of Trachemys scripta, however, direct actions for the conservation of the Iberian native turtles are also planned in this project. Various methodologies, such as head starting, are being tested in order to reinforce the number of individuals in the populations. However, various studies point to the fact that taking direct actions to preserve the adult specimens is more effective than head starting and thus, we also aim to reinforce natural populations by reintroducing individuals delivered or kept in Recovery Centres to their population of origin through the development and use of genetic analysis tools. We firstl determined to which mitochondrial lineage those individuals belong. This is of great importance because we previously found translocated individuals from Eastern Europe. In a second stage we genotyped individuals from new Portuguese populations and Recovery centres using seven microsatellite markers. We pooled this data with a previously published genetic dataset for Iberian populations and allocated the unknown individuals to their most likely region of origin. Our results show a high capacity of allocating individuals, making this a feasible method to allocate individuals of unknown origin to their natural populations and a tool of great importance for the conservation of this emblematic species.
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