An article about population structure and genetic diversity of the crocodile newt, Echinotriton andersoni was published online in Conservation Genetics now!

An article about population structure and genetic diversity of the crocodile newt, Echinotriton andersoni was published online in Conservation Genetics now! I’m very pleased to be able to announce after long struggle since we started this study in 2010. We identified fine population structure and genetic diversification patterns even in each islands in Ryukyu Archipelago. Basically the patterns follows isolation by distance model, but there are exceptions in some islands including Tokashikijima where the intra-population genetic diversity is decreased. Personally I tried some new analyses to extract and visualize tempo-spacial gene flow patterns (and enjoyed its computational works!). This is collaborative study with various Japanese institutions studying herpetology, Ryukyus, Tsukuba, Hyogo, Kyoto, Tokyo Metro and Hiroshima.

Reference:
*Igawa T, Sugawara H, Honda M, Tominaga A, Oumi S, Katsuren S, Ota H, Matsui M, Sumida M, Detecting inter- and intra-island genetic diversity: population structure of the endangered crocodile newt, Echinotriton andersoni, in the Ryukyus. Conservation Genetics (advanced online publication). [ DOI | http | PDF ]