Author Archives: Ben Wielstra

In the Netherlands we have a situation where the introduced Italian crested newt is locally replacing the native Northern crested newt. As the Northern crested newt is a threatened species, conservationists would like to try and remove Italian crested newts … Continue reading →

The crested newt species traditionally referred to as ‘Triturus karelinii’ has turned out to be a group of cryptic species. A range-wide mtDNA phylogeography revealed that this taxon comprises three mtDNA clades, as distinct from one another as recognized crested … Continue reading →

Male T. dobrogicus. Picture by Michael Fahrbach. The taxonomical history of Triturus has been (and is) a turbulent one. However, genetic data has been very helpful in clearing it up. After our recent taxonomical revision of the genus, all species … Continue reading →

Invasive species threaten native biota, not only through competition, predation and infection, but also via hybridization. Human-induced hybridization has important implications from the point of view of conservation as it results in genetic replacement – a loss of biodiversity at … Continue reading →

Last spring Emin Bozkurt and I were conducting fieldwork in Turkey. Although we were specifically targeting crested newts, we came across many Lissotriton newts as well. We were quite surprised to catch some paedomorphic Kosswig’s newts (Lissotriton kosswigi). Paedomorphism is … Continue reading →

The current Pleistocene Ice Age has heavily influenced the distribution of species. One could argue it still does – the Ice Age is not a thing of the past, we are now merely experiencing a relatively warm interval (called the … Continue reading →

I have been awarded an ‘outgoing’ Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship. This will allow me to visit the lab of Brad Shaffer at the University of California, Los Angeles in the USA to learn sequence capture by target enrichment for two years. … Continue reading →

The four main groups of crested newt species differ in body shape. This morphological variation is correlated with ecological differences: sturdier newts are more terrestrial and slenderer newts more aquatic. This suggests that the differentiation in body shape drove their … Continue reading →

A grant proposal I wrote together with Pim Arntzen was successful and will allow us to hire a PhD student to work on amphibian hybrid zones.