The genus Baldellia Parl. has always been a complex taxon. Three species and three subspecies have been proposed for the Iberian Peninsula. The morphological variation of this genus in the Iberian Peninsula, Balearic islands and northern Morocco, and its thermo-pluviometric and altitudinal correlation are the focus of this contribution. Twenty-eight morphological variables were examined and sub...

Abstract The pathogenic chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans ( Bsal ) was introduced from Asia to Europe, most likely via the pet trade. It is currently causing a severe local decline in populations of European fire salamanders Salamandra salamandra ). Laboratory tests confirmed that all infected individuals succumbed disease within two weeks. Furthermore, mass mortality events wild...

Diverse microbial assemblages inhabit amphibian skin and are known to differ among species; however, few studies have analysed these differences in systems that minimize confounding factors, such as season, location or host ecology. We used high-throughput amplicon sequencing to compare cutaneous microbiotas among two ranid frogs (Rana dalmatina, R. temporaria) and four salamandrid newts (Ichth...

The maternal manipulation hypothesis states that ectothermic females modify thermal conditions during embryonic development to benefit their offspring (anticipatory maternal effect). However, the recent theory suggests that the ultimate currency of an adaptive maternal effect is female fitness that can be maximized also by decreasing mean fitness of individual offspring. We evaluated benefits o...

For organisms that reproduce in discrete habitat patches, land cover between patches (known as the matrix) is important for dispersal among breeding sites. Models of patchy populations often incorporate information on the permeability of the matrix to dispersal, sometimes based on expert opinion. I estimated the relative resistance to gene flow of land cover types and barriers using F(ST) calcu...

The ciliate family Cyrtolophosididae Stokes, 1888 contains species that are poorly known from both the morphological and molecular perspectives. To further our understanding of this family, one species, Aristerostoma marinum Kahl, 1931, was redescribed. Cells in our population had a mean in vivo size of 15x8 microm. There were six rows of somatic kineties, as well as six dorsal kinetids belongi...