Ecological and population genetic studies of Bombina variegata

Bombina variegata, the yellow-bellied toad, is strictly protected on European scale. By means of this master thesis information about the current situation of the yellow-bellied toads were collected and monitored in two investigation areas in the Federal State of Salzburg. My project attempted to characterize ecological and structural parameters of spawning and residence habitats, as well as to determine the size of population by means of the Jolly-Seber capture-recapture method and the ventral patterns of Bombina variegata. Another task was to test the hypothesis if specific spawning behavior can result in a cryptic differentiation of populations and if temporally separated spawning periods lead to genetically differentiated subpopulations. Additionally the genetic difference among the populations of both investigation areas was measured in order to test if these populations are genetically isolated. In order to analyze the genetic structures samples of the buccal mucosa have been taken from each individual and were genotyped by performing amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLP).