Mitochondrial phylogeography of the red-tailed knobby newt (Tylototriton kweichowensis)

The red-tail knobby newt (Tylototriton kweichowensis), endemic to Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau (China), is classed as vulnerable amphibian by IUCN. Recently, habitat destruction and degradation are major threats to this species. To assess the genetic diversity and population structure with this species, we determined the sequence of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region and tRNA-Phe gene in 13 individuals from two sites in Yunnan, and reanalyzed 58 published samples from 12 sties in Yunnan and Guizhou. Nineteen variable sites were observed and 28 haplotypes were identified. Haplotype diversity was high (0.9364) and nucleotide diversity among all haplotypes was relatively low (0.00219). Bayesian tree and a median-joining network revealed no significant phylogeographic structure. Both the bell-shaped pairwise mismatch distribution and significant negative values of Fu's FS suggested that red-tail knobby newt have experienced a recent population expansion. Base on the results of this study, several conservation recommendations on this vulnerable species are discussed.