Large-Scale Hybridisation as an Extinction Threat to the Suweon Treefrog (Hylidae: Dryophytes suweonensis)
1
Laboratory of Animal Behaviour and Conservation, College of Biology and the Environment, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China
2
Science Unit, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong
3
Department of Life Sciences and Division of EcoScience, Ewha Woman’s University, Seoul 03760, Korea
4
Centre for Research and Development of Membrane Technology, Institute of Environmental Technology, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi 10072, Vietnam
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Animals 2020, 10(5), 764; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10050764
Received: 10 March 2020
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Revised: 5 April 2020
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Accepted: 13 April 2020
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Published: 27 April 2020
(This article belongs to the Section Ecology and Conservation)
Simple Summary
A large number of amphibian species are now endangered, mostly because of human activities. An example is land modification, which may bring species that were previously isolated in contact, and allows them to hybridise. Here, we assessed the presence of hybrid individuals between the endangered Suweon treefrog (Dryophytes suweonensis) and the widespread Japanese treefrog (Dryophytes japonicus). We found hybrids to be relatively widespread and present at all populations where the Suweon treefrog occurred. This is important, as it results in an additional threat to the Suweon treefrog.
Amphibians are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, and human activities play a major role in pushing species towards extinction. Landscape anthropisation has impacts that indirectly threaten species, in addition to the obvious destruction of natural habitats. For instance, land modification may bring human-commensal species in contact with sister-clades from which they were previously isolated. The species in these new contact zones are then able to hybridise to the point of reaching lineage fusion, through which the gene pool of the two species merges and one of the parental lineages becomes extirpated. Here, we documented the patterns of hybridisation between the spatially restricted D. suweonensis and the widespread D. japonicus. On the basis of the analysis of Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I mitochondrial DNA sequences (404 individuals from 35 sites) and six polymorphic microsatellites (381 individuals from 34 sites), we revealed a generalised, bi-directional, and geographically widespread hybridisation between the two species. Evidence of fertile back-crosses is provided by relatively high numbers of individuals in cyto-nuclear disequilibrium, as well as the presence of hybrid individuals further south than the species distribution limit, determined on the basis of call properties. Hybridisation is an additional threat to the endangered D. suweonensis.
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Keywords:
hybridisation; extinction threat; North East Asia; hylid; conservation biology; Korea
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MDPI and ACS Style
Borzée, A.; Fong, J.J.; Nguyen, H.Q.; Jang, Y. Large-Scale Hybridisation as an Extinction Threat to the Suweon Treefrog (Hylidae: Dryophytes suweonensis). Animals 2020, 10, 764. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10050764
AMA Style
Borzée A, Fong JJ, Nguyen HQ, Jang Y. Large-Scale Hybridisation as an Extinction Threat to the Suweon Treefrog (Hylidae: Dryophytes suweonensis). Animals. 2020; 10(5):764. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10050764
Chicago/Turabian StyleBorzée, Amaël, Jonathan J. Fong, Hoa Q. Nguyen, and Yikweon Jang. 2020. "Large-Scale Hybridisation as an Extinction Threat to the Suweon Treefrog (Hylidae: Dryophytes suweonensis)" Animals 10, no. 5: 764. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10050764
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