Monday 16 April 2012

Traffic Harms Asturian Amphibians



ScienceDaily (Apr. 12, 2012) — Midwife toads and palmate newts are run over and their habitats are fragmented by roads in the Trubia valley (Asturias). According to a Spanish study, alleviating traffic is not enough to minimise the impact on midwife toad populations.

The roads are the main cause of fragmenting the habitats of many species, especially amphibians, as they cause them to be run over and a loss of genetic diversity. Furthermore, traffic harms two abundant species that represent the amphibious Asturian fauna and have been declared vulnerable in Spain: the midwife toad (Alytes obstetricans) and the palmate newt (Lissotriton helveticus).

"But midwife toad and palmate newt populations have very different sensitivities to the effects of roads" Claudia García-González, researcher at the University of Oviedo, said. "These amphibians have very different dispersal capabilities."

From various DNA tests, Eva García Vazquez's team have analysed the correlation between the number of roads that the amphibians have to cross to travel from one colony to another and the intensity of the genetic barriers between them. This way she has determined how the traffic affected them.

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