Geographic peculiarities of structure and hemicloning reproduction of Pelophylax esculentus water frog complex (Anura, Ranidae) populations in the East European Plain within Ukraine

What is it about?

Geographic peculiarities of population structure and hemicloning reproduction of the water frog Pelophylax esculentus complex of 926 samples within southern East European Plain were analyzed. Parental species (P. ridibundus and P. lessonae) and their hybrid form P. kl. esculentus in 178 populations were identified using allozymes analyses or exterior features examination in nature. The arena of water frog hybridization covers the larger part of Ukraine, except the coastal Azov Sea rivers and Crimea. The proportion of “pure” populations of P. ridibundus is 0.681 against those 0.042 of P. lessonae. The RE-type populations are the most common among mixed populations (0.141). The mixed formations of the two parental species and P. kl. esculentus (REL-type), as well as those of P. lessonae with P. kl. esculentus (LE-type), have the frequencies 0,082 and 0,035, respectively. All-hybrid populations (E-type) are not numerous across the region (0,015). In the populations of Central, Northern and Western Ukraine, the P. lessonae genome is eliminated during gametogenesis within hybrids while in the Lower Dnieper and Lower Danube drainages, genome of P. ridibundus is eliminated. In the Eastern Ukraine populations, hybrids usually produce diploid gametes or haploid gametes with the P. ridibundus genome, less often with the chromosome set of P. lessonae only, and even more rarely a mixture of different types of gametes.

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