Authors: Guillermo VeloAntón Michael Wink Norbert Schneeweiß Uwe Fritz
Publish Date: 2010/10/02
Volume: 12, Issue: 2, Pages: 583-588
Abstract
Pet and food trade are among the major threats for many chelonians species worldwide We investigate the impact of the present and past trade in European pond turtles Emys orbicularis E trinacris on their extant distribution pattern Using a comprehensive mtDNA dataset of cytochrome b haplotypes derived from more than 1550 individuals we assigned wildcaught allochthonous and captive turtles from six European countries to their native regions across the entire distribution range We found allochthonous haplotypes in all countries surveyed providing evidence of longdistance translocations owing to past and present trade illegal poaching or collection by tourists In summary we identify source regions of allochthonous turtles and past and present trade routes Moreover we point out future directions which would contribute to conservation and management of these threatened speciesWe thank Gonzalo Alarcos Alberto Álvarez Rita Castilho Aitziber Egaña Marc Franch and Albert Martínez Silvestre for help during fieldwork or providing samples Adolfo Cordero Rivera helped to sample wild populations and provided lab facilities and funding for Iberian samples Nicola Novarini helped with historical literature Lab work for nonIberian samples was done by Hedi SauerGürth Anke Müller and Anja Rauh Guillermo VeloAntón was supported by a grant from the Consellería de Innovación Industria e Comercio Xunta de Galicia and is currently supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación Ref 20080890 The Iberian part of this study was partially funded by research grants from the Xunta de Galicia PGIDIT05RFO37101PR
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