Hybridisation, speciation and genetic structure in a woodland specialist

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Forestry occupies 13% of British land area. Management for timber objectives conflicts with support for biodiversity. The fragmentation of woodlands may lead to genetic isolation, particularly in poor dispersing specialists e.g. wood ants (Formica rufa group). Wood ants are ecologically dominant, have undergone recent speciation, are prone to hybridise and thus offer an ideal system to study the impact of fragmentation on population genetic structure. At the local level of the North York Moors (NYM), F. lugubris is genetically diverse despite fragmentation, with mitochondrial haplotypes of other F. rufa gp. species nested within the F. lugubris clade: this may indicate cryptic species or hybridisation. This study will clarify the NYM population's conservation status and provide new insights into speciation, genetic isolation and hybridisation.