Coastal wetland area has declined globally over the last century, but the magnitude of loss rates varies widely, and the drivers of spatial variability in land loss are often unclear. To examine drivers of wetland loss in northeast Florida USA, we performed a land cover change detection analysis using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and examined the roles of distance to shore, mangrove presence, and boat wake energy on marsh-to-w...

Through genomic phylogeography, previously unrecognised biodiversity can be revealed. The alpine newt serves as a case in point: this taxon carries highly distinct mtDNA clades and has a severely fragmented range. We obtain genome‐wide data with target enrichment by sequence capture to delineate cryptic species and disentangle their phylogenetic relationships. Furthermore, we explore potential niche divergence and glaciation‐d...

Aim Understanding how interindividual variation within populations drives the evolution of biodiversity patterns is a major challenge in ecology and evolutionary biology. By reshuffling species distribution in space and time, Pleistocene climatic oscillations shaped the structure of biodiversity. While the genetic legacy left by these processes has been widely investigated, their effects on phenotypic diversity remain largely...

Conservation projects seek to protect species, restore habitats, and mitigate threats such as habitat loss, climate change, and unsustainable resource use. These projects often rely on acquiring ecological data from the wild to support biodiversity management and promote resilience through informed management decisions. Animal use is usually crucial for investigating ecosystem dynamics, species ecology, and management strategi...

Aim Glacial refugia are areas of primary importance for the evolution and conservation of biodiversity. Yet, their geographic location remains loosely defined even in intensively studied areas, preventing a thorough understanding of their role in the spatiotemporal biodiversity dynamics. With this study, we aim to locate the major glacial refugia within the biodiversity hotspot of the Italian peninsula, to understand the proce...

Palearctic water frogs (genus Pelophylax ) are an outstanding model in ecology and evolution, being widespread, speciose, either threatened or threatening to other species through biological invasions, and capable of siring hybrid offspring that escape the rules of sexual reproduction. Despite half a century of genetic research and hundreds of publications, the diversity, systematics and biogeography of Pelophylax still remain...

Evolutionary trends (ETs) are traditionally defined as substantial changes in the state of traits through time produced by a persistent condition of directional evolution. ETs might also include directional responses to ecological, climatic or biological gradients and represent the primary evolutionary pattern at high taxonomic levels and over long-time scales. The absence of a well-supported operative definition of ETs blurre...

Accurate species delimitation is of primary importance in biodiversity assessments and in reconstructing patterns and processes in the diversification of life. However, the discovery of cryptic species in virtually all taxonomic groups unveiled significant gaps in our knowledge of biodiversity. Mimicry complexes are good candidates to source for cryptic species. Indeed, members of mimicry complexes undergo selective pressures...

MtDNA-based phylogeography has illuminated the impact of the Pleistocene Ice Age on species distribution dynamics and the build-up of genetic divergence. The well-known shortcomings of mtDNA in biogeographical inference can be compensated by integrating multilocus data and species distribution modelling into phylogeography. We re-visit the phylogeography of the Italian crested newt ( Triturus carnifex ), a species distributed...