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Amphibians are particularly sensitive to landscape fragmentation. Potential barriers between breeding sites can negatively influence the dispersal of individuals and increase genetic structure between populations. In this study, we genotyped 10 microsatellites for 334 marbled newts (Triturus marmoratus) at 11 different locations in Western France. Samples were collected in different regions with contrasting agricultural landscapes (low and high proportion of arable land in the north and south, respectively). We found a strong genetic structure between the northern and southern sampling sites. Isolation by distance was recorded after 62 km, but within the northern region, little or no genetic structure was detected over large distances (up to 114 km). Genetic structure at shorter distance (43 km) was found between sites situated in landscapes with larger amounts of arable lands. A significant positive relationship was found between the pairwise genetic distance (Fst) between sites and the amount of arable land together with the distance between sites. Our results suggest that the Loire River might act as a corridor for the marbled newt, while arable land might act as a barrier. Finally, although a large city is located between sampling sites, no effect was detected on population structure.

a b s t r a c tThis article accounts for the hitherto unexplained increase in the availability of ivory in mid-thirteenth-century France through an alteration in the medieval trade routes that brought elephant tusks from Africa to northern Europe. A newly-opened passage through the Straits of Gibraltar allowed a small amount of luxury goods to be shipped together with bulk materials necessary to the flourishing textile industries of northern Europe.

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Grain of paradise, newly come, Citoal, anis, et canele, Zedoary, anise, cinnamon; Et mainte espice délitable, And many a spice delectable Que bon mengier fait après table. Good for eating after table. 1 Towards The beGinninG of the Roman de la Rose, Guillaume de Lorris (ca. 1200-ca. 1240) describes the marvellous garden of love, where apple trees grow pomegranates, nut trees sprout nutmegs, and where almond, fig, and datetrees flourish within the cloistered walls. These fruits of the orient were joined by every imaginable spice good for cleansing the palate after a meal: cloves, licorice, zedoary, anise, cinnamon, and an exotic new spice, grains of paradise ("Graine de paradis novele"). Written in the third decade of the thirteenth century, Guillaume's poem marks one of the first instances when this peppery seed (related to the ginger plant) is recorded in western Europe. 2 Also known as melegueta pepper, Aframomum melegueta remained an extremely popular spice at French and Burgundian courts for approximately two centuries. Unlike locally available licorice and anise, or the cinnamon and zedoary (also known as white turmeric) imported from the Indian subcontinent, or the cloves and nutmeg from the spice islands of Indonesia, grains of paradise are native to the rainforests of West Africa and so came to northern Europe by a completely different route. 3 This long-distance relay network, which linked Guillaume's France to the coastal rainforests of West Africa via trans-Saharan trade routes, also resulted in the flourishing production of Gothic ivories during this exact same period. From about 1230 to 1500, diptychs, polyptychs, and statuettes (Plate 5.1) made of African elephant ivory 4 filled 1 Le Roman de la Rose, vv. 1389-94. Translation courtesy of Carol Symes.

Many species are migratory, resulting in a life cycle divided into periodic stages occurring in different habitats occupied for a limited amount of time. Estimating the time spent in each habitat is crucial to understanding how individuals modulate their activities and thus to evolutionary ecology and conservation biology. Several methods, including some recent promising advances, can be used to estimate stopover duration as well as arrival and departure probabilities at sites where individuals are monitored using capture-recapture sampling. Our objectives in this study were to (1) describe the available models to estimate stopover duration, (2) illustrate with an original data set what kinds of questions can be addressed using the most recent methods, and (3) to provide in a detailed appendix a practical guide for implementing these methods in E-SURGE software. To illustrate the potential of these models for testing biological hypotheses, we used a capture-recapture data set on marbled newts (Triturus marmoratus). We used time-dependent and time-elapsed-since-arrival effects (using both Markovian and semi-Markov processes for the latter) to model stopover duration and the probability of arriving in and departing from a breeding pond for this species and compared the relative performance of the resulting models. Our findings showed a strong sex effect on stopover duration: females stayed on average 5.63 weeks in a breeding pond whereas males stayed only 3.03 weeks. In both sexes, the retention probability was mainly influenced by the time already spent there. Consequently, individuals of the same sex stayed a similar amount of time in a pond, although they did not arrive simultaneously but successively. The selected data set demonstrated the flexibility of these methods and their potential relevance for applications in evolutionary ecology and conservation.