Molecular evidences confirm a late Pleistocene origin of the Italian and Maltese populations of the freshwater crab, Potamon fluviatile (Herbst, 1785) (Malacostraca, Decapoda)

Abstract

In the last decade, several studies were conducted on Potamon fluviatile in order to investigate its phylogenetic relationships with the other species in the subgenus Euthelphusa, and to elucidate its phylogeography (see Jesse et al. 2010,

and references therein). Based on molecular data, Jesse et al. (2009) proposed a late Pleistocene origin from the Balkans for the Italian and Maltese populations

of the species. However, it is also well-known that, during the Pleistocene glaciations, southern Italy and Sicily acted as refugia for species which persisted in

situ, with a resulting genetic differentiation of these “southern” strains, both for

aquatic and terrestrial taxa. The purpose of our study was thus to test the possible role played by southern Italy and Malta as refugia for the freshwater crab

during the Pleistocene, through the implementation of an expanded sampling of the genetic diversity of different populations of the species in Sicily and the Maltese archipelago.