Inlay

Yesterday afternoon @rachelhester.bsky.social successfully defended her PhD thesis—𝗔 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶-𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗼 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘁 𝘐𝘤𝘩𝘵𝘩𝘺𝘰𝘴𝘢𝘶𝘳𝘢 𝘢𝘭𝘱𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘴 𝗶𝗻 𝗚𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻—we couldn't be more proud @uclcber.bsky.social @zslscience.bsky.social @ucllifesciences.bsky.social

New paper out today in @consbiog.bsky.social 🎉 How did the introduced alpine newt spread so widely across Britain? Was it natural dispersal - or did humans help it along? 🧵👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @jimlabisko.bsky.social @zslscience.bsky.social @uclcber.bsky.social

Aim Success in a biological invasion often depends on whether the non-native species can disperse from its introduction site and spread across the invaded landscape. The alpine newt, Ichthyosaura al...

In summary! 👉 Their success is driven by human-mediated translocations - people helped them overcome natural barriers and establish widely. 👉 This is good news for management - if they don’t disperse far naturally, control can focus on local eradication, not nationwide spread.

We tackled this using ddRAD-Seq based population genomics 🧬 We sampled 95 alpine newts from 11 sites across Britain and analysed >20,000 SNP markers to reconstruct their invasion history 👽

First key result: 👉 Strong population structure across sites Populations are genetically distinct - suggesting they didn’t all come from a single spreading population.

We also see: 👉 genetically similar populations far apart geographically - a big indicator that humans moved them between locations. Our analyses also show that: ❌ long-distance natural dispersal is unlikely, so alpine newts aren’t spreading across Britain on their own.

So what’s going on? Our analyses point to: 👉 multiple independent introductions into Britain - not just one introduction followed by spread.

Biological invasions often depend on one key thing: 👉 can a species move across the landscape after it arrives? But for many introduced species, we don’t actually know how that spread happens.

Hey hun, stop what you're doing—there's new(ts) research out! Some tip-top #amphibian #science from @rachelhester.bsky.social in Diversity and Distributions (@consbiog.bsky.social) 🧪