Hybridisation, speciation and genetic structure in a woodland specialist

林业占英国国土面积的13%。对木材目标的管理与对生物多样性的支持相冲突。林地的破碎化可能导致遗传隔离，特别是在传播能力差的专业物种，如木蚁（Formica rufa group）中。木蚁在生态上占优势，经历了最近的物种形成，易于杂交，因此提供了一个理想的系统来研究种群遗传结构的碎片化的影响。在地方一级的北约克摩尔人（NYM），F。lugubris的遗传多样性，尽管碎片，线粒体单倍型的其他F。鲁法角种巢居在F. lugubris分支：这可能表明隐藏的物种或杂交。这项研究将阐明NYM种群的保护状况，并为物种形成、遗传隔离和杂交提供新的见解。

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.