DNA variations of the green toad Pseudepidalea viridis (syn. Bufo viridis) from various habitats

Abstract

Background: The present study examined genetic variations of the green toad Pseudepidalea viridis from different breeding sites throughout Israel and in Egypt, Turkey, Iran, and Germany (out-groups).Results: Comparison of Cyt b and D-loop fragments from Israeli sites with those from the four out-groups showed that analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) was greatest among regions. Values of proportion of the total genetic variance among regions (PhiRT) in Israeli sites were relatively low and not statistically significant. A cluster analysis of RAPD for classifying P. viridis revealed a subgroup comprising seven northernmost populations and three populations near the southern and eastern deserts surrounding Israel. AFLP analysis defined all individuals in a single cluster. Variations in P. viridis according to AMOVA test of Israeli sites using GenAl were 2% among regions, 8% among populations, and 90% within populations. Conclusions: These findings support the hypothesis that various ecological conditions in a relatively small area have little effect on genetic variations.

Ecological, Biological, Behavioral and Genetic Adaptation to Xeric Habitats of Triturus Vittatus Vittatus (Urodela) on the Southern Border of its Distribution

“…In central Israel, the life cycle has been described by Geffen [18]. T. v. vittatus in the aquatic phase is reproduced in mainly unpredictable habitats such as winter pools that contain water only until the beginning of the summer, although occasionally these pools contain water throughout the year [5,[8][9][10]16,[19][20][21][22][23]. Like other newts, T. v. vittatus require water bodies surrounded by an adequate terrestrial habitat to support both terrestrial and aquatic life phases.…”

“…v. vittatus adults were found in ponds at low temperatures during the winter, but the eggs and larvae developed only when the temperature was above 20ºC [19][20][21][22]. The larvae hatched later and remained in the rain pool for 30-75 days.…”

“…The gonadal cycle of the terrestrial and aquatic phases of T. v. vittatus has been described in various habitats in the Upper Galilee ( Figure 1) for both males and females [6,7,[19][20][21][22][23]. In female gonads, different stages were recognized: oogonia, chromatin nucleolus, perinuclear and vitellogenic oocyte maturation ( Figure 4) Table 3: Size of adult newts at the breeding sites studied [4].…”

“…Many different water body sites in Israel were examined, and the larvae of newts were found mainly in unpredictable habitats, most of them winter pools where water is available only during part of the year, and the available water varies from one year to the other [9,[19][20][21][22][23]. The larval growth period of T. v. vittatus differs between the various breeding sites according to the ecological conditions in the ponds [24].…”

“…In order to examine genetic variation among populations, various biochemical and molecular biology methods were used such as serum albumin [17], enzyme isozymes [30], randomly amplified polymorphic DNA chain reaction (RAPD PCR) [31,32], mitochondrial DNA [26,[33][34][35], Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) [19][20][21][22] and sequencing of transcriptome-based genetic markers [36].…”