PARENT SESSION
Poster Session # 22: Late-Breaking Newsworthy Posters
Friday, August 8 Presentation from 8:30 AM to 10:00 AM. SITCC Exhibit Hall B.
Breeding pond isolation as revealed by microsatellite variation in the spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum).
PURRENHAGE, JENNIFER*,1, NIEWIAROWSKI, PETER1, ZAMUDIO, KELLY2, 1 University of Akron, Akron, OH2 Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
ABSTRACT- Metapopulation theory provides a framework for predicting population persistence and other population dynamic behavior when populations in a given landscape are connected by the processes of emigration and immigration. Although many species of amphibians, especially those breeding in unpredictably distributed ephemeral ponds, are presumed to exist as metapopulations, there are precious few data demonstrating metapopulation structure of any amphibian. Nevertheless, there is much current interest in understanding landscape level processes in terms of their impacts on the population biology of many amphibian species. At the very least, metapopulation processes can only be reliably modeled once we have information about rates of movement of individuals among populations. Most amphibians are cryptic in their terrestrial home ranges, therefore, indirect methods of measuring rates of individual dispersal and for identifying sources of variation in the relative isolation of some populations from others provide an opportunity to construct realistic metapopulation models for many species. We are interested in the role that metapopulation processes and landscape level habitat variation contribute to the dynamics of a population of spotted salamanders we are studying in northeast Ohio. Every year greater than 50% of the salamanders migrating to Windhover Pond (the site of an ongoing mark-recapture study) are unmarked. This begs the question: from where are the unmarked individuals coming? Are they dispersers from other ponds in the area? Dispersal of individuals among populations can affect gene flow and thus contribute to genetic differentiation among ponds. Our recently initiated study of spotted salamander population structure addresses this by using microsatellite markers to determine the degree of population differentiation in northeast Ohio. Our pilot study utilizes 4 microsatellite loci to determine the genetic structure of 11 breeding populations located within a landscape fragmented by roads, agricultural and urban areas, and the Cuyahoga River.
Key words: metapopulation, Ambystoma maculatum, microsatellites, amphibians