title: Population Structure and Evolution after Speciation of the Hokkaido Salamander (Hynobius retardatus).
abstract: The Hokkaido salamander (Hynobius retardatus) is endemic to Hokkaido Island, Japan, and shows intriguing flexible phenotypic plasticity and regional morphological diversity. However, to date, allozymes and partial mitochondria DNA sequences have provided only an outline of its demographic histories and the pattern of its genetic diversification. To understand the finer details of the population structure of this species and its evolution since speciation, we genotyped five regional populations by using 12 recently developed microsatellite polymorphic markers. We found a clear population structure with low gene flow among the five populations, but a close genetic relationship between the Teshio and Kitami populations. Our demographic analysis suggested that Teshio and Erimo had the largest effective population sizes among the five populations. These findings regarding the population structure and demography of H. retardatus improve our understanding of the faunal phylogeography on Hokkaido Island and also provide fundamental genetic information that will be useful for future studies.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Ecological Genetics, Graduate School of Environmental Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan.
authors.forename: Masatoshi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Matsunami
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of International Development and Cooperation, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, 739-8526, Japan.
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Igawa
authors.affiliation: School of Pharmacy, Department of Clinical Medicine (Biostatistics), Kitasato University, Tokyo, 108-8641, Japan.
authors.forename: Hirofumi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Michimae
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Ecological Genetics, Graduate School of Environmental Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan.
authors.forename: Toru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Miura
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University, Hakodate, 041-8611, Japan.
authors.forename: Kinya
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nishimura
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D051456:Gene Flow / Q000235:genetics; D005838:Genotype; D007564:Japan; D010802:Phylogeny; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000379:methods; D014562:Caudata / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial