TY  - JOUR
A1  - Frosch, Christiane
A1  - Kraus, Robert H. S.
A1  - Angst, Christof
A1  - Allgöwer, Rainer
A1  - Michaux, Johan
A1  - Teubner, Jana
A1  - Nowak, Carsten
T1  - The genetic legacy of multiple beaver reintroductions in Central Europe
T2  - PLoS One
N2  - The comeback of the Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) throughout western and central Europe is considered a major conservation success. Traditionally, several subspecies are recognised by morphology and mitochondrial haplotype, each linked to a relict population. During various reintroduction programs in the 20th century, beavers from multiple source localities were released and now form viable populations. These programs differed in their reintroduction strategies, i.e., using pure subspecies vs. mixed source populations. This inhomogeneity in management actions generated ongoing debates regarding the origin of present beaver populations and appropriate management plans for the future. By sequencing of the mitochondrial control region and microsatellite genotyping of 235 beaver individuals from five selected regions in Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Belgium we show that beavers from at least four source origins currently form admixed, genetically diverse populations that spread across the study region. While regional occurrences of invasive North American beavers (n = 20) were found, all but one C. fiber bore the mitochondrial haplotype of the autochthonous western Evolutionary Significant Unit (ESU). Considering this, as well as the viability of admixed populations and the fact that the fusion of different lineages is already progressing in all studied regions, we argue that admixture between different beaver source populations should be generally accepted.
Y1  - 2014
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/33801
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-338011
SN  - 1932-6203
N1  - Copyright: © 2014 Frosch et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
VL  - 9
IS  - (5):e97619
PB  - PLoS
CY  - Lawrence, Kan.
ER  -