Microsatellites for northern pike (Esox lucius) populations in Germany

Esox lucius L. (northern pike) inhabits river, lake and brackish water ecosystems of the temperate region in North America and Eurasia. In many areas of its native range, the species is confronted with human-induced disturbances that can affect local and regional genetic diversity. Conservation of genetic diversity constitutes an important policy objective. Therefore, we investigated how the genetic population structure and patterns suggestive of hybridization among subpopulations from different catchments vary with the type of ecosystem (river vs. lake) and the integrity of the ecosystem assessed using ecological status assessments of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) and indices of the wetland quality (in rivers) and trophic state (in lakes).
1,384 pike samples from the North, Baltic and Black Sea drainages in Germany were analysed. We differentiated between metapopulations from each hydrogeographic region using genotypes from 15 microsatellites and mitochondrial cyt ...