Genetic structure of Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra, Carnivora: Mustelidae) populations from the western Baltic sea region and its implications for the recolonization of north-western Germany

Abstract

We analysed 229 Eurasian otters from eastern and north-western Germany, Denmark and southern Sweden based on sequences of the mtDNA control region and genotypes at 12 polymorphic nuclear microsatellite loci. The main focus of the study lay on the north-west German otters from Schleswig-Holstein, which represent a newly established and expanding population recolonizing a formerly inhabited region, thereby closing the distributional gap between the large eastern population and the long-isolated and genetically depleted Danish population. As found before in this species, mtDNA variability was very low but we identified a hitherto unknown haplotype in Sweden. Expected heterozygosities were between 0.46 and 0.69 and thus within the range known from the literature. There were only weak signs of a founder effect in the Schleswig-Holstein otters with respect to allelic diversity (but not heterozygosity). Nevertheless, there was a statistically significant bottleneck signal based on deviations from mutation-drift equilibrium in Schleswig-Holstein. All statistical approaches (amovas, factorial correspondence analysis, assignment tests and Bayesian structure analysis) unequivocally showed that north-western Germany has so far been predominantly recolonized by otters of east German origin, but we also found evidence of admixture through immigration from Denmark. Both the Danish and the north-west German otter population will benefit from further exchange in the wake of the ongoing range expansion.

Spatial genetic structure in the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) meta-population from its core range in Italy

“…Also, the values of heterozygosities were similar to those found in western Wales and south-western England (Dallas et al, 2002), in Denmark (Pertoldi et al, 2001;Randi et al, 2003;Honnen et al, 2011;Mucci et al, 2010) and in England (Mucci et al, 2010), with H e of about 0.40. Conversely, the Italian meta-population showed a value of both average number Mantel test for A) the correlation between geographic distance (GGDsq) and genetic distance (LinGD) (Rxy = 0.264, P = 0.0001) and for B) the correlation between resistance distance (a measure of ecological distance) (ECO500) and LinGD (Rxy = 0.217, P = 0.0001).…”

Evaluating the Phylogenetic Status of the Extinct Japanese Otter on the Basis of Mitochondrial Genome Analysis

“…l . lutra using more than 500 individuals on the basis of the partial mitochondrial CR [ 41 – 43 ]. Therefore, we used the data from these studies to calculate the time of the most recent common ancestor (tMRCA) of the L .…”

Identification of novel haplotypes and interpretation of gene flow of mitochondrial DNA control region of Eurasian otter (<i>Lutra lutra</i>) for the effective conservation

“…The IBD analysis of within population was conducted for two groups: 1) within Asian population ( n =12) which consisted of South Korea ( n =7), China ( n =3), Russia ( n =1); Japan ( n =1); 2) Within European population ( n =15) which consisted of Germany ( n =3), Sweden ( n =3), U.K. ( n =4), and Ireland ( n =5), respectively. For the IBD analysis of among populations, We divided otter populations into two groups: 1) Asia ( n =12), Germany ( n =3)/ Sweden ( n =3), U.K. ( n =4), and Ireland ( n =5); 2) Asia ( n =12), Germany ( n =3)/ Sweden ( n =3), and Ireland ( n =5) based on the previous studies [ 8 , 17 , 23 , 24 , 59 ]. Finally, reduced major axis (RMA) regression analysis was conducted to quantify the strength of the IBD pattern by calculating the slope and the intercept of genetic distance against geographic distance using the formulas provided by Sokal and Rohlf (1981) [ 57 ] using IBD (Isolation by Distance) v 1.52 program [ 6 ].…”

“…A total of 15 haplotypes have been identified so far, Lut1, Lut3, and Lut6 [ 59 ] Lut2, Lut4 and Lut5 [ 8 ], Lut7 [ 46 ], Lut8, Lut9, Lut10, Lut11 and Lut12 [ 17 ], Lut13 [ 23 ] and Lut14 and Lut15 [ 24 ] based on the variable sites of partial (254–364 bp) MtDNA CR sequences of European otters ( Lutra lutra ). We newly discovered 4 novel haplotypes of this species originating from northeast Asian regions (South Korea, China, Japan and Russia (Sakhalin)) by analyzing partial (232 bp) mtDNA CR sequences with previous European sequences using DnaSP 5.10.1 [ 35 ].…”