Robust identification of species and significant evolutionary units (ESUs) is essential to implement appropriate conservation strategies for endangered species. However, definitions of species or ESUs are numerous and sometimes controversial, which might lead to biased conclusions, with serious consequences for the management of endangered species. The hazel dormouse, an arboreal rodent of conservation concern throughout Europe is an ideal model species to investigate the relevance of species identification for conservation purposes. This species is a member of the Gliridae family, which is protected in Europe and seriously threatened in the northern part of its range. We assessed the extent of genetic subdivision in the hazel dormouse by sequencing one mitochondrial gene (cytb) and two nuclear genes (BFIBR, APOB) and genotyping 10 autosomal microsatellites. These data were analysed using a combination of phylogenetic analyses and species delimitation methods. Multilocus analyses revealed the presence of two genetically distinct lineages (approximately 11 % cytb genetic divergence, no nuclear alleles shared) for the hazel dormouse in Europe, which presumably diverged during the Late Miocene. The phylogenetic patterns suggests that Muscardinus avellanarius populations could be split into two cryptic species respectively distributed in western and central-eastern Europe and Accession numbers are available at the ''European Nucleotide Archive'' browser at the address http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/ LT614830-LT614893 and in Supplementary Anatolia. However, the comparison of several species definitions and methods estimated the number of species between 1 and 10. Our results revealed the difficulty in choosing and applying an appropriate criterion and markers to identify species and highlight the fact that consensus guidelines are essential for species delimitation in the future. In addition, this study contributes to a better knowledge about the evolutionary history of the species.

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Abstract Across Europe, the edible dormouse (Glis glis) and the garden dormouse (Eliomys quercinus) are listed as protected species. In areas where households are close to habitats where these dormice are present, they easily penetrate into the houses. While dormice are admired by the public as cute animals, conflicts are common when dormice enter houses and cause damage, mostly on the wooden construction parts, insulation or electrical installations. Another source of nuisance is that property owners are faced with damage to stored food or dormouse urine/faeces are deposited and represent a potential source of zoonoses. In addition, the nocturnal activity of dormice disturbs the sleep regime of sensitive household owners. Here we show that while in many countries the dormice have high legal protection status, apart from few local exceptions, the house owners get little practical help from the governmental agencies on how to tackle the conflicting issue of sharing their property with protected rodents. We outline reasons why dormice enter households and identify the most common ways the animals get in. We also provide some practical recommendations on how to deal with the conflicts that arise.

The hazel dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius presents an exemplary non-model species that is both locally threatened and whose genetic status is not fully understood owing to insufficient resolution of the currently available molecular tools. We performed normalized Genotyping-by-Sequencing (nGBS) on 48 hazel dormouse samples collected across the species European distribution, aiming at discovering useful single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers for the assessment of population structure and genomic diversity. The analyses of > 24,000 SNPs showed a high divergence between the Eastern and Western lineage of the species with high rates of SNP allele fixation, consistent with previous studies suggesting the divergence of lineages occurred over 2 mya. These results indicate that investigating inter-lineage as well as within-lineage genetic composition will be a conclusive approach for identifying conservation strategies in the future. Results presented here indicate the highest genetic divergence in the Italian and Lithuanian populations. We document how nGBS allows the discovery of SNPs that can characterize patterns of genetic variation at multiple spatial scales in a non-model organism. We document how nGBS allows the discovery of SNPs that can characterize patterns of genetic variation at multiple spatial scales in a non-model organism, potentially informing monitoring and conservation strategies.