Hydrogeology of the Skadar Lake Basin

Long‐term within‐basin isolation patterns, different conservation units, and interspecific mitochondrial DNA introgression in an amphipod endemic to the ancient Lake Skadar system, Balkan Peninsula

“…Taking into account the uniqueness of the Lake Skadar basin environment, connected with a large number of ancient karst springs and river mouth habitats, still isolated for cold-adapted species by warm waters of the lake, we designated two data sets, AMOVA 1 and AMOVA 2, with different partitioning of the 12 sampling sites, where H. scutarensis was present (Table 3). In AMOVA 1, we partitioned the data set into four groups according to the major physiographic features of Lake Skadar basin (Figure 1 in this area (Radulović, 2018), even if both springs are eventually connected to Crnojevića inlet by a system of surface flows and temporary flooded areas, they may have a direct and much shorter underground interconnection. To explore in detail the spatial pattern of H. scutarensis haplotype distribution and the genetic connectivity, we have calculated the pairwise F ST coefficients between sampling sites and performed the exact test for population differentiation, using sampling sites as basic population equivalents, and the default settings in Arlequin 3.5.…”

“…DNA barcoding, environmental protection, fine-scale endemism, Homoeogammarus scutarensis, karst The Lake Skadar system provides a perfect example of a patchy habitat in the fine geographical scale. Shallow waters of the lake are thermally unstable, reaching from c. 7°C in December to as much as 27-29°C in August (Kostianoy, Soloviev, Kostianaia, & Sirota, 2018), while the water temperature in the springs is rather stable at 10-15°C, depending on spring (Radulović, 2018;Zawal & Pešić, 2018). Thus, the lake appears to be at least a temporal barrier for species migration between cold-water habitats such as karst springs.…”

“…Shallow waters of the lake are thermally unstable, reaching from c. 7°C in December to as much as 27-29°C in August (Kostianoy, Soloviev, Kostianaia, & Sirota, 2018), while the water temperature in the springs is rather stable at 10-15°C, depending on spring (Radulović, 2018;Zawal & Pešić, 2018). Shallow waters of the lake are thermally unstable, reaching from c. 7°C in December to as much as 27-29°C in August (Kostianoy, Soloviev, Kostianaia, & Sirota, 2018), while the water temperature in the springs is rather stable at 10-15°C, depending on spring (Radulović, 2018;Zawal & Pešić, 2018).…”