Glib O. Mazepa

University of Lausanne | UNIL · Department of Ecology and Evolution

Incompatibilities between parental genomes decrease viability of interspecific hybrids; however , deviations from canonical gametogenesis such as genome endoreplication and elimination can rescue hybrid organisms. To evaluate frequency and regularity of genome elimination and endoreplication during gametogenesis in hybrid animals with different plo...

Human introductions of exotic amphibians can have catastrophic effects on native species. However, they usually remain unnoticed without genetic tools when species are difficult to distinguish morphologically. In Western Europe, pool frogs (Pelophylax sp.) make a worrisome case: recent genetic data showed the presence of Italian (Pelophylax bergeri...

Despite increasing appreciation of the speciation continuum, delimiting and describing new species is a major yet necessary challenge of modern phylogeography to help optimize conservation efforts. In amphibians, the lack of phenotypic differences between closely-related taxa, their complex, sometimes unresolved phylogenetic relationships, and thei...

Background Hybridogenesis (hemiclonal inheritance) is a kind of clonal reproduction in which hybrids between parental species are reproduced by crossing with one of the parental species. European water frogs (Pelophylax esculentus complex) represent an appropriate model for studying interspecies hybridization, processes of hemiclonal inheritance an...

ARTICLE Ongoing harlequin toad declines suggest the amphibian extinction crisis is still an emergency Biodiversity loss is extreme in amphibians. Despite ongoing conservation action, it is difficult to determine where we stand in overcoming their extinction crisis. Among the most threatened amphibians are the 131 Neotropical harlequin toads. Many o...

Prior to the large-scale aggression against Ukraine, Russia had already occupied territories in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine with rich biodiversity and a number of protected habitats and endemic species, being responsible for all negative processes there. Since the onset in February 2022 the large-scale aggression against Ukraine, because of dense sh...

The Malvasá rocket frog, Hyloxalus pinguis, is a poorly studied species with a restricted distribution and limited data on its natural history. Its taxonomic status is also uncertain, with some researchers considering it to be a junior synonym of H. pulchellus. We explore the differences between H. pinguis and other species within the genus, update...

Reproductive isolation is instrumental to the formation of new species (speciation), but it remains largely enigmatic how many incompatibilities are required to prevent hybridization and where they lie across the genome. By studying patterns of admixture in amphibian hybrid zones, we found that reproductive isolation is initiated by numerous small-...

We provide the first comprehensive data on the questionable distribution of the genus Pelophylax and the family Ranidae from Pa-kistan. Based on a literature review and two specimens of the genus from Tasp, Panjgur District in Pakistani Balochistan (USNM 26194-95), stored in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, USA, w...

We report the discovery of a population of the exotic North African Water Frog Pelophylax saharicus around the Etang de Berre, on the Mediterranean coast of France, about 25 km north-west of Marseille. The animals had been originally identified as P. perezi or P. kl. grafi by a combination of acoustic and morphological characters and their true ide...

Hybridogenesis is a reproductive tool for sexual parasitism. Hybridogenetic hybrids use gametes from their sexual host for their own reproduction, but sexual species gain no benefit from such matings as their genome is later eliminated. Here, we examine the presence of sexual parasitism in water frogs through crossing experiments and genome-wide da...

Several water frogs from the genus Pelophylax have a hybrid origin and perpetuate by hybridogenesis, a peculiar mode of reproduction ruled by complex phenomena such as clonality and polyploidy, and which can constitute a transient stage towards the formation of novel species. Different kinds of hybridogenetic complexes have been documented througho...

New information on the occurrence of Helobdella europaea Kutschera, 1987 was obtained. Four individuals assigned to this species were found in a private aquarium in Kharkiv. Helobdella europaea has not been recorded for Ukraine so far. The taxonomic identity of the leeches was confirmed by both a morphological examination and a molecular phylogenet...

Several lines of evidence support that north-Italian and Ticinese tree frogs, recently called Hyla perrini, represent a distinct species, formerly considered as Hyla intermedia. However, a nomenclatural clause for electronic publishing of species names according to the Code of International Nomenclature caused that the new name has been unavailable...

The genome size variability was studied with use of the method of fl ow DNA cytometry in 342 individuals from 64 localities in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. It was revealed 88 (26%) diploids, 3 (1%) triploids, and 251 (73%) tetraploids. The limits of variation of the character did not overlapped in representatives of all these three groups. We did n...

The distribution of Bufotes latastii, a diploid green toad species, is analyzed based on field observations and literature data. 74 localities are known, although 7 ones should be confirmed. The range of B. latastii is confined to northern Pakistan, Kashmir Valley and western Ladakh in India. All records of "green toads" ("Bufo viridis") beyond thi...

The distribution of Bufotes latastii, a diploid green toad species, is analyzed based on field observations and literature data. 74 localities are known, although 7 ones should be confirmed. The range of B. latastii is confined to northern Pakistan, Kashmir Valley and western Ladakh in India. All records of "green toads" ("Bufo viridis") beyond thi...

During a scientific field expedition to the Alai-Pamir range five specimens of the genus Gloydius have been collected in the larger Alai. A morphological and genetical examination of the specimens has shown that they are part of the G. halys complex, but represent a new taxon which is characterized by the following unique character combination: It...

The contemporary dominating viewpoint about speciation implies evolution by gradual divergence due to action of natural selection and/or neutral processes as genetic drift. However, hybrid speciation represents alternative mode when evolutionary novelty results from admixture of the preexisting polymorphisms. Water frogs genus Pelophylax provide an...

Hybridogenesis represents one of known clonal ways by which interspecies hybrids can be reproduced. During hybridogenesis, gametogenesis proceeds with deviations, when one of the parental genomes can be eliminated while the other one can be endoreduplicated. Among natural interspecies hybrids, Pelophylax esculentus as a hybrid between P. ridibundus...

We report several new localities of common toads from northern Iran. Based on the study of external morphology and a fragment of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene, the Iranian common toads were identified as Bufo eichwaldi. Maximum entropy modelling was used to estimate the effects of altitude, precipitation and temperature on the distribution of B....

Water frogs inhabiting Cyprus represent a distinct evolutionary species of Messinian origin that is formally described in this paper. The systematic status of Cypriot frogs is evidenced by specific characters in their mitochondrial (mt) and nuclear (nu) DNA sequences, and the fact that they form a well supported monophyletic clade in both mtDNA and...

The records of bisexual all-triploid populations of B. baturae in the southern Pamir (Tajikistan) and B. zamdaensis in the Spiti River valley (India) are described. Genome size, karyotypes, 16S rRNA sequences and allozyme variation are studied. Taxonomic status, genetic reproductive pattern and distribution of the toads are discussed.

We studied the distribution of Palearctic green toads (Bufo viridis subgroup), an anuran species group with three ploidy levels, inhabiting the Central Asian Amudarya River drainage. Various approaches (one-way, multivariate, components variance analyses and maximum entropy modelling) were used to estimate the effect of altitude, precipitation, tem...

Based on DNA flow cytometry, we identified green frog localities with hybrid Rana esculenta. We found or confirmed some southernmost localities of the species situated in Moldavia and Ukraine. According to our data, the southern distributional border of R. esculenta is demarcated as follows from the west to the east: Vilkovo (Danube River Delta), V...

A triploid female (3n = 33) was found in diploid species Bufo viridis from the Crimea Peninsula, Ukraine. The case is recognized as an occasional autotriploidy. No morphological differences were found between this triploid female and other diploid specimens of the sample. Three categories of triploids in the Bufo viridis group are clas-sified. Base...

The South American leech Helobdella triserialis was found in an aquarium in Kharkiv, Ukraine. The examined leeches have branched crop caeca and two transverse interruptions of paramedian stripes at the anterior end. H. triserialis feeds on various freshwater invertebrates and tolerates low temperature.