European red deer are known to show a conspicuous phylogeographic pattern with three distinct mtDNA lineages (western, eastern and North-African/Sardinian). The western lineage, believed to be indicative of a southwestern glacial refuge in Iberia and southern France, nowadays covers large areas of the continent including the British Isles, Scandinavia and parts of central Europe, while the eastern lineage is primarily found in southeast-central Europe, the Carpathians and the Balkans. However, large parts of central Europe and the whole northeast of the continent were not covered by previous analyses. To close this gap, we produced mtDNA control region sequences from more than 500 red deer from Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and western Russia and combined our data with sequences available from earlier studies to an overall sample size of almost 1,100. Our results show that the western lineage extends far into the European east and is prominent in all eastern countries except for the Polish Carpathians, Ukraine and Russia where only eastern haplotypes occurred. While the latter may actually reflect the natural northward expansion of the eastern lineage after the last ice age, the present distribution of the western lineage in eastern Europe may in large parts be artificial and a result of translocations and reintroduction of red deer into areas where the species became extinct in historical times.

We analyzed 121 golden jackals (Canis aureus) from six sample sites in Serbia with regard to genetic variability and differentiation as revealed by mitochondrial control region sequences and eight nuclear microsatellite loci. There was no variation at all in the mtDNA sequences, and nuclear variability was very low (average observed and expected heterozygosity of 0.29 and 0.34, respectively). This is in line with the considerable recent range expansion of this species in the Balkans and indicates a strong founder effect in the recently established Serbian population. We did not find evidence of differentiation between the northeastern jackals and those from the plain of Srem or those in between. F-statistics and Bayesian Structure analyses, however, were indicative of a low degree of overall differentiation in the Serbian population. A vagrant Austrian jackal that was also analyzed was genetically indistinguishable from its Serbian conspecifics.

The arbovirus vectors Aedes aegypti (yellow fever mosquito) and Ae. albopictus (Asian tiger mosquito) are both common throughout the Indo-Pacific region, where 70% of global dengue transmission occurs. For Ae. aegypti all Indo-Pacific populations are invasive, having spread from an initial native range of Africa, while for Ae. albopictus the Indo-Pacific includes invasive populations and those from the native range: putatively, India to Japan to Southeast Asia. This study analyses the population genomics of 480 of these mosquitoes sampled from 27 locations in the Indo-Pacific. We investigated patterns of genome-wide genetic differentiation to compare pathways of invasion and ongoing gene flow in both species, and to compare invasive and native-range populations of Ae. albopictus. We also tested landscape genomic hypotheses that genetic differentiation would increase with geographical distance and be lower between locations with high connectivity to human transportation routes, the primary means of dispersal at these scales. We found that genetic distances were generally higher in Ae. aegypti, with Pacific populations the most highly differentiated. The most differentiated Ae. albopictus populations were in Vanuatu, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, the latter two representing potential native-range populations and potential cryptic subspeciation respectively. Genetic distances in Ae. aegypti increased with geographical distance, while in Ae. albopictus they decreased with higher connectivity to human transportation routes. Contrary to the situation in Ae. aegypti, we found evidence of long-distance Ae. albopictus colonisation events, including colonisation of Mauritius from East Asia and of Fiji from Southeast Asia. These direct genomic comparisons indicate likely differences in dispersal ecology in these species, despite their broadly sympatric distributions and similar use of human transport to disperse. Our findings will assist biosecurity operations to trace the source of invasive material and for biocontrol operations that benefit from matching genetic backgrounds of released and local populations.

Artificial light at night (ALAN) is one of the most obvious hallmarks of human presence in an ecosystem. The rapidly increasing use of artificial light has fundamentally transformed nightscapes throughout most of the globe, although little is known about how ALAN impacts the biodiversity and food webs of illuminated ecosystems. We developed a large-scale experimental infrastructure to study the effects of ALAN on a light-naïve, natural riparian (i.e., terrestrial-aquatic) ecosystem. Twelve street lights (20 m apart) arranged in three rows parallel to an agricultural drainage ditch were installed on each of two sites located in a grassland ecosystem in northern Germany. A range of biotic, abiotic, and photometric data are collected regularly to study the short-and long-term effects of ALAN on behavior, species interactions, physiology, and species composition of communities. Here we describe the infrastructure setup and data collection methods, and characterize the study area including photometric measurements. None of the measured parameters differed significantly between sites in the period before illumination. Results of one short-term experiment, carried out with one site illuminated and the other acting as a control, demonstrate the attraction of ALAN by the immense and immediate increase of insect catches at the lit street lights. The experimental setup provides a unique platform for carrying out interdisciplinary research on sustainable lighting.

We analysed 123 white-tailed sea eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla) from (primarily central) Europe with respect to variability and differentiation based on 499 bp of the mitochondrial control region and genotypes at seven unlinked nuclear microsatellites. Variability was high (overall expected heterozygosity, haplotype and nucleotide diversity being 0.70, 0.764 and 0.00698, respectively) and both marker systems showed a subdivision into two main genetic clusters (microsatellites) or haplogroups (mtDNA). In line with earlier analyses focusing on populations from northern and eastern Europe, as well as from Asia, we found a high level of admixture in Europe and no signs of a bottleneck -despite a severe decline of white-tailed sea eagle populations during the 20 th century. Europe is thus a global stronghold for this species not only with respect to the number of breeding pairs but also regarding the proportion of species-wide genetic diversity. Our dense sampling revealed a possibly clinal variation within central Europe from north-west to south-east that was reflected by the distribution of mtDNA haplotypes as well as the two microsatellite-based clusters. This population differentiation in central Europe probably originated from a geographically structured postglacial colonization and was later enhanced by recent demographic fluctuations.

We analysed 120 white‐tailed sea eagles Haliaeetus albicilla from eastern (Poland and Estonia) and southeastern (Serbian Danube population) Europe for genetic variability and structuring at the mitochondrial control region and seven nuclear microsatellite loci. We combined this new dataset with sequence and genotype data from previous analyses covering Greenland and Eurasia (total sample sizes of 420 and 186 individuals for mtDNA and microsatellites, respectively) to address the following questions: 1) does the large eastern population in Europe add significantly to the species‘ overall genetic diversity? 2) Do the new sequence data match the clinal distribution pattern (west to east) of the two major mtDNA lineages? 3) Does the preliminary hypothesis of two nuclear genetic clusters recently found in this species hold for the whole of Europe, and do these clusters show a geographic pattern? Our results confirmed Europe as a stronghold of genetic diversity in white‐tailed sea eagles, and the east of the continent contributed disproportionately to this, the reason being the admixture of eagles with different genetic background. As hypothesised, both mitochondrial lineages were recovered also in eastern Europe, but the globally more eastern lineage was dominant. The presence of two microsatellite clusters was also confirmed, and these groups, too, show a non‐random geographic distribution, with, except for Poland, a high proportion of ‘eastern‐type’ eagles in the populations of east–central and eastern Europe.

The immense biodiversity of the Atlas Mountains in North Africa might be the result of high rates of microallopatry caused by mountain barriers surpassing 4000 meters leading to patchy habitat distributions. We test the influence of geographic structures on the phylogenetic patterns among Buthus scorpions using mtDNA sequences. We sampled 91 individuals of the genus Buthus from 51 locations scattered around the Atlas Mountains (Antiatlas, High Atlas, Middle Atlas and Jebel Sahro). We sequenced 452 bp of the Cytochrome Oxidase I gene which proved to be highly variable within and among Buthus species. Our phylogenetic analysis yielded 12 distinct genetic groups one of which comprised three subgroups mostly in accordance with the orographic structure of the mountain systems. Main clades overlap with each other, while subclades are distributed parapatrically. Geographic structures likely acted as long-term barriers among populations causing restriction of gene flow and allowing for strong genetic differentiation. Thus, genetic structure and geographical distribution of genetic (sub)clusters follow the classical theory of allopatric differentiation where distinct groups evolve without range overlap until reproductive isolation and ecological differentiation has built up. Philopatry and low dispersal ability of Buthus scorpions are the likely causes for the observed strong genetic differentiation at this small geographic scale.

BackgroundArtificial light at night (ALAN) is a typical feature of urban areas and most organisms living in urban or suburban habitats are exposed to low levels of ALAN. Light is one of the most important environmental cues that organisms use to regulate their activities. Studies have begun to quantify the influence of ALAN on the behavior and ecology of organisms, but research on the effects at the molecular level remains limited. Mosquitoes in the Culex pipiens complex (Diptera, Culicidae) are widespread and abundant in urban areas where they are potential disease vectors. It is thus of particular interest to understand how ALAN may influence biologically and ecologically relevant traits.ResultsWe used RNAseq to evaluate the transcriptome response in a Cx. pipiens f. molestus laboratory population that was exposed to near-natural light conditions (light:dark L16:D8 hours, “control”) and ALAN conditions with 3 h of constant low-level light at night (L16 + Llow3:D5 hours, “low-light”). The resulting transcripts were mapped to the reference genome of the closely related Culex quinquefasciatus. Female expression patterns differed significantly between control and treatment conditions at five genes although none showed an absolute fold change greater than two (FC > 2). In contrast, male expression differed at 230 genes (74 with FC > 2). Of these, 216 genes (72 with FC > 2) showed reduced expression in the low-light treatment, most of which were related to gametogenesis, lipid metabolism, and immunity. Of the 14 genes (two with FC > 2) with increased expression, only five had any functional annotation. There was a pronounced sex-bias in gene expression regardless of treatment, with 11,660 genes (51 % of annotated genes; 8694 with FC > 2; 48 % of annotated genes) differentially expressed between males and females, including 14 genes of the circadian clock.ConclusionOur data suggest a stronger response to artificial light by males of Cx. pipiens f. molestus than by females, and that a wide range of physiological pathways may be affected by ALAN at the molecular level. The fact that differences in gene expression appear to be sex-specific may have a strong influence at the population level.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-2336-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.