The British Herpetological Society

The Herpetological Journal is the Society's prestigious quarterly scientific journal. Articles are listed in Biological Abstracts, Current Awareness in Biological Sciences,Current Contents, Science Citation Index, and Zoological Record.

 ISSN 0268-0130

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pdf 06. Two clades of north European pool frogs Rana lessonae identified by cytochrome b sequence analysis

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pp. 255-260
Authors: Zeisset, Inga & Beebee, Trevor J.C.

Abstract: A 410 base-pair region of the mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) gene, including the coding region for amino acids 44–179, was amplified and sequenced from a total of 53 pool frogs (Rana lessonae) sampled in nine European countries across the species' biogeographical range. Just two haplotypes were found, differing by single base pair (G–A transition) at a codon second position, corresponding to a conservative (serine–asparagine) change at amino acid 75. Only haplotype A (serine 75) was found in the samples from Italy, Hungary, Switzerland, Poland, Sweden, Norway and Britain (including museum specimens). Only haplotype B (asparagine 75) was found in France, and there were equal numbers of A and B haplotypes in a small sample from the Netherlands. Comparisons with other ranid cytb sequences together with an absence of stop codons indicated that the sequences were mitochondrial rather than nuclear copies. Using these north European cytb sequences and three more from other work based on individuals from Italy, Ukraine and Luxembourg, we discuss haplotype distribution with respect to the phylogeography of R. lessonae.

Keywords: DIVERSITY, MTDNA, PHYLOGEOGRAPHY

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IMPORTANT NOTE - JUNE 2020

Please note that as from Volume 31 Number 1 (January 2021) on, the Herpetological Journal will be available as an online publication only - the last print edition will be Volume 30 Number 4.   

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