10.5061/DRYAD.DB800
Ringler, Eva
University of Vienna
Mangione, Rosanna
University of Vienna
Ringler, Max
University of Vienna
Data from: Where have all the tadpoles gone? Individual genetic tracking
of amphibian larvae until adulthood.
Dryad
dataset
2014
Allobates femoralis
2014-11-13T15:41:48Z
2014-11-13T15:41:48Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.12345
212768 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Reliably marking larvae and reidentifying them after metamorphosis is a
challenge that has hampered studies on recruitment, dispersal, migration
and survivorship of amphibians for a long time, as conventional tags are
not reliably retained through metamorphosis. Molecular methods allow
unique genetic fingerprints to be established for individuals. Although
microsatellite markers have successfully been applied in mark–recapture
studies on several animal species, they have never been previously used in
amphibians to follow individuals across different life cycle stages. Here,
we evaluate microsatellites for genetic across-stages mark–recapture
studies in amphibians and test the suitability of available software
packages for genotype matching. We sampled tadpoles of the dendrobatid
frog Allobates femoralis, which we introduced on a river island in the
Nature Reserve ‘Les Nouragues’ in French Guiana. In two subsequent
recapture sessions, we searched for surviving juveniles and adults,
respectively. All individuals were genotyped at 14 highly variable
microsatellite loci, which yielded unique genetic fingerprints for all
individuals. We found large differences in the identification success of
the programs tested. The pairwise-relatedness-based approach, conducted
with the programs kingroup or ML-Relate, performed best with our data set.
Matching ventral patterns of juveniles and adult individuals acted as a
control for the reliability of the genetic identification. Our results
demonstrate that microsatellite markers are a highly powerful tool for
studying amphibian populations on an individual basis. The ability to
individually track amphibian tadpoles throughout metamorphosis until
adulthood will be of substantial value for future studies on amphibian
population ecology and evolution.
dryad_full datasetgenepop format of all individual genotypes at all 14
microsatellite loci
South America
French Guiana