New Italian Vipera

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Re: New Italian Vipera

Postby Jeroen Speybroeck » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:33 pm

So I got some answers from Sylvain!

1) Can we, with what is available in terms of data, rule out that walser stems from an ancient ‘hybrid’ origin?
mtDNA and nuDNA are really different from all known species/subspecies/clades. So this species really has an old history. Some old hybridisation cannot be excluded, as µsat markers should be investigated in this case. But the results of the nDNA sequencing also suggests that on this part the nDNA is very different.

2) Is one specimen per species enough for the applied nuclear analysis, or are these markers just highly conservative (within each species)?
More would be for sure ideal. But these genes are generally very conservative, and it is likely that all individuals have more or less the same haplotype.

3) How would you interprete the berus-like morphology of walser? Often, people would shout “convergence”, but I don’t really see what the evolutionary drivers would be to force this taxon into the looks of an equally useful design.
For me it’s really convergence and selection for this pattern in this condition. Think about all viper species living in Mountains: V. berus, V. a. zinninkeri in the Pyrenees, V. a. “atra”, in a lesser extent V. a. gregorwalneri in Austria; similarly in the southern part when you compare V. l. gaditana, V. a. hugyi and V. a. meridionalis. You can also think about V. darevskii and V. eriwanensis which look very similar but are complete different lineages….

4) Is there any hybridisation with aspis documented? If not, how likely would you consider it to be.
For the moment, we do not have any sign of hybridisation with V. aspis and I do not remember places where both species occur. However, this point (as numerous others) should be investigated.


This last is point is particularly interesting, because we observed clear syntopy last weekend. The information will be passed on to the Italian researchers who will work on the species in the future. It is possible/likely they did know this already.

The third issue still puzzles me, because there's of course the counterexample of bosniensis-macrops...
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Re: New Italian Vipera

Postby Ilian Velikov » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:45 pm

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:Don't worry, Ilian, I was not responding, but rather worried that nobody's still reading. I get that often because I (obviously) have difficult shutting up and then I think of people visiting this forum once every week and then they find this cascade of words without photos or field story...


:lol: Yes, I get that feeling too. However, believe it or not there are people on this forum (including me) that enjoy those text-only posts. I love field reports but a lot of them are just beautiful photos + some useful information (which of course is great) but discussions like the current one are what really gets my mind stirring.

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:Esculentus is a very special case, but secondary contact (in this case between two water frog taxa) is a fairly regular part of the process, yes, certainly in Europe. Esculentus is a weird example/exception of what may happen if reproductive isolation is not entire. Other examples are clonal all-female Darevskia 'species' resulting from ancient hybridisation.


Thanks! Good to know. There you go - an example of learning new things from those long text-only discussions. A treat for the curious mind. ;)

Regarding what Ruggero wrote (too long to quote :) ):

Yes, that's another prove of the relativity of things. However, I'm not that bothered by this and I'm happy to believe and accept what the more knowledgeable people than me have worked to prove (even if it's not 100%). They say walser is a new species, so there you go. For me it doesn't matter if you call it berus or walser (because of the gray area around the definition of species), as long as it helps preserve it and its environment (although I think it's not necessary to categorise it as a new species to have the desire to protect it).
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Re: New Italian Vipera

Postby Jeroen Speybroeck » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:59 pm

Ilian Velikov wrote:For me it doesn't matter if you call it berus or walser

Well, for me it does, because this lineage is evolutionary far away from berus, as far as we can tell.

This even has a conservation link. We could forget about naming any of the biodiversity soup and protect and cherish every single population, but because this is unrealistic and we need to set priorities, it is good to know where the true diversity lies. And that's where genetic diversity plays an important part, imho. Regardless of the limitations, genes provide a much more detailed image than the less fluid classification of the soup into taxa.
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Re: New Italian Vipera

Postby Ilian Velikov » Thu Jul 07, 2016 1:25 pm

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:Ilian Velikov wrote:
For me it doesn't matter if you call it berus or walser

Well, for me it does, because this lineage is evolutionary far away from berus, as far as we can tell.


Because it doesn't matter for me and because you clearly know what you're talking about I'll call it walser too, that's what I was trying to say. But it doesn't make it more interesting, more valuable or more worth protecting than if it was berus.

However, this is also unfortunately true...
Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:This even has a conservation link. We could forget about naming any of the biodiversity soup and protect and cherish every single population, but because this is unrealistic and we need to set priorities, it is good to know where the true diversity lies. And that's where genetic diversity plays an important part, imho.
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Re: New Italian Vipera

Postby Jeroen Speybroeck » Thu Jul 07, 2016 1:41 pm

OK, so now one of the Italian researchers told me they do know about a fairly broad overlap between walser and aspis at lower elevation. They are also looking in to sampling DNA from the Po Plain adders (believed to be extinct), but formalin fixated samples are generally useless if not very hard to extract DNA from, so to be continued!
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Re: New Italian Vipera

Postby Mario Schweiger » Thu Jul 07, 2016 2:01 pm

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:They are also looking in to sampling DNA from the Po Plain adders (believed to be extinct), but formalin fixated samples are generally useless if not very hard to extract DNA from, so to be continued!


http://www.sanguefreddo.net/forum/altri-animali/nostrani-piccola-fauna/134966-biacco-o-marasso
picture from forum
Image
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Re: New Italian Vipera

Postby Ilian Velikov » Thu Jul 07, 2016 2:40 pm

Mario, is that photo from the Po Plain?
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Re: New Italian Vipera

Postby Ruggero M. » Thu Jul 07, 2016 2:41 pm

Thanks Jeroen for the kind and very good answers of Ursenbacher, and thanks to Mario for the picture of a 'maybe' living Po Plain "berus".
Sad new the one of the death of Benedetto Lanza.
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Re: New Italian Vipera

Postby Mario Schweiger » Thu Jul 07, 2016 2:44 pm

Ilian Velikov wrote:Mario, is that photo from the Po Plain?


yes, it was taken near Ferrara in August 2014.
sent the link to Edo Razzetti many weeks ago.
He said he will try to find out more
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Re: New Italian Vipera

Postby Ruggero M. » Thu Jul 07, 2016 9:11 pm

Mario Schweiger wrote:
Ilian Velikov wrote:Mario, is that photo from the Po Plain?


yes, it was taken near Ferrara in August 2014.
sent the link to Edo Razzetti many weeks ago.
He said he will try to find out more



The story of this picture is interesting, and I've taken part in the discussion on that forum (if you understand italian, my nickname on that forum is Fels).
Edo is very doubtful about this picture, but for reasons which are not the same of mine.
I'm a bit doubtful only for "psychological" reasons about the guy who posted that picture.
The guy, in fact, asked the forum whether that snake could be a berus (marasso) or a whipsnake (H.viridiflavus).
This fact sounded to me very strange and suspicious.
A layman, in fact, could have made other type of questions, for instance: "What kind of snake is this?"
Why did he ask just about the berus? A hoax? A troll?
I asked him why, in the forum, and his answer was: "I asked about whipsnake and berus, because by me it's plenty of whipsnakes but I've always read that there are no vipers; having spoken with the hunters, they told me that the marassi (=V.berus) are actually present".
I don't know what to think about this.
There were then a few attempts by members of that forum to come in contact with that guy, but everything ended in nothing.
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