The endangered white-clawed crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes (Decapoda, Astacidae) east and west of the Maritime Alps: a result of human translocation?

Abstract

The genetic variability among Italian populations of the white-clawed crayfish (Austropotamobius pallipes) was examined to determine their phylogeography and to assess their conservation status as a management unit. A fragment of the mitochondrial DNA COI gene of 107 specimens from ten populations was sequenced, and the phylogenetic relationships were established. Two out of three haplotypes sampled in two French populations from the Rhône basin were shared with Italian populations. Despite a moderate level of genetic variability within the Italian populations of A. pallipes, no genetic structure was revealed. It has been suggested that there have been translocation events throughout the Alpine barrier between the North-Western Italian basins and the Rhône basin. Genetic exchangeability of the French and Italian populations was demonstrated in this study, and a shift of conservation efforts towards the native, congeneric Austropotamobius italicus is recommended.

Update of genetic information for the white-clawed crayfish in Spain, with new insights into its population genetics and origin

“…The mean nucleotide and haplotype diversities in the Spanish samples were 0.00037 ± 0.00006 and 0.733 ± 0.076, respectively. Therefore, the genetic variation (Hd, π, Table 1) is greater than that previously reported (Grandjean et al 2001;Pedraza-Lara et al 2010), although it is at the lower limit of the range described for other European populations (Pedraza-Lara et al 2010;Stefani et al 2009;Trontelj et al 2005). This is probably due to the reduced sizes of the Spanish populations.…”

Complexity of biogeographic pattern in the endangered crayfish Austropotamobius italicus in northern Italy: molecular insights of conservation concern

“…1). The presence of populations in which carsicus and carinthiacus haplotypes occur in syntopy could be the outcome of human translocations, a practice documented for the past and likely to have affected the white-clawed crayfish distribution all over Europe (Souty-Grosset et al 1997;Gouin et al 2003;Stefani et al 2011). Nevertheless, we believe that the observed scenario is rather the result of secondary contacts between two deeply differentiated clades after their last post-glacial expansion.…”

The first record of translocated white-clawed crayfish from the Austropotamobius pallipes complex in Sardinia (Italy)

“…Consequently, a recent human-mediated translocation seems to be the most probable explanation of our findings because of the close similarity of the Sardinian genetically type with other Southern Italian populations of A. i. meridionalis; i.e., we found low and non-significant F-statistics values with the populations from Sele, Crati and Umbria. Recent studies revealed that translocation events are numerous as discovered both in Maritim alps (Stefani et al, 2011) and the record of a population of the southern lineage of A. italicus; i.e., a non-native taxon, in northern Alps (Chucholl et al, 2015). Thus, notwithstanding the abundant literature on A. pallipes complex, a better knowledge of its distribution is needed.…”

“…As well as the taxonomical status of the A. pallipes species remains as unsolved and uncertain, some genetic studies based on sequences of the 16S rRNA and CO1 mitochondrial genes (Grandjean et al, 2000(Grandjean et al, , 2002Matallanas et al, 2011), partially supported by morphological (Bott, 1950;Karaman, 1962;Brodski, 1983;Grandjean et al, 1998;Bertocchi et al, 2008a) and allozyme data (Santucci et al, 1997), suggest the existence of two different lineages (Grandjean et al, The first record of translocated white-clawed crayfish from the Austropotamobius pallipes complex in Sardinia (Italy) N o n -c o m m e r c i a l u s e o n l y 2000; but see Chiesa et al, 2011;Scalici and Bravi, 2012). The first is A. pallipes, distributed across most river basins from France, the Rhine and Rhône drainages of Switzerland, the North-western Italy, the South-western tip of Germany and the British Isles (Grandjean et al, 2002;Zaccara et al, 2004;Stefani et al, 2011). The second species is A. italicus (Faxon, 1914), present in Italy, Dalmatia and the Iberian Peninsula (Grandjean et al, 2000;Fratini et al, 2005;.…”