Mitochondrial diversity of Western spadefoot toads, Pelobates cultripes, in northwestern Spain Angelica Crottini 1,2,* , Pedro Galán 3 , Miguel Vences 1 Abstract. We analysed the DNA sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene for 49 specimens of the Western spadefoot toad, Pelobates cultripes, from Spain, and one sample from France, with a focus on populations from Galicia in northwestern Spain. Our results point to a generally low mitochondrial differentiation of the species across its distributional range although some phylogeographic structure was detected. Galician populations from coastal localities, from the A Limia region, and from Monforte appeared to be closely related, whereas the only available sample from the relict Galician population from near O Barco de Valdeorras has the same haplotype as the samples from Burgos, in central Spain. Keywords: Amphibia, cytochrome b, Galicia, genetic diversity, Iberian Peninsula, Pelobates cultripes, Pelobatidae. The family Pelobatidae consists of one ex- tant genus, Pelobates Wagler, 1830, contain- ing four species of Afro-European spadefoot toads (García-París, Buchholz and Parra-Olea, 2003). This genus includes predominantly bur- rowing species, generally not considered to be very mobile over long distances (Eggert, 2002). Spadefoot toads have narrow habitat require- ments (Shpun et al., 1993; Martínez-Rica, 1997; Nöllert, 1997), and environmental conditions strongly influence their population dynamics. Therefore paleoenvironmental conditions have played a key role in structuring current popula- tions (Eggert et al., 2006; Crottini et al., 2007). The Western spadefoot toad, Pelobates cultripes Cuvier, 1829, is distributed across most of the Iberian Peninsula (except for the north), along the French Mediterranean littoral, and in iso- lated populations at the Western Atlantic French coast (Lizana, 1997a, 1997b; ACEMAV, Duguet 1 - Zoological Institute, Technical University of Braun- schweig, Spielmannstr. 8, 38106 Braunschweig, Ger- many 2 - Sezione di Zoologia e Citologia, Dipartimento di Biolo- gia, Universitá degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 26, 20133 Milano, Italy 3 - Departamento de Bioloxía Animal, Bioloxía Vexetal e Ecoloxía, Facultade de Ciencias, Universidade da Coruña, 15071 A Coruña, Spain; e-mail: pgalan@udc.es * Corresponding author; e-mail: tiliquait@yahoo.it and Melki, 2003; Malkmus, 2004). Pelobates cultripes is a widespread Iberian species with, however, a relatively small area of occupancy within its range. In the Iberian Peninsula it is mostly present in the Mediterranean region and it is more abundant in the south, but is ab- sent from the Cantabrian area and the Pyre- nees (Tejedo and Reques, 2002; Cruz, 2008). It mostly inhabits siliceous sandy soils, where its populations are more uniformly distributed, while on calcareous substrates its populations are scarce (García-París, Montori and Herrero, 2004). The species is typically found in exposed habitats with low vegetation cover and tempo- rary lentic water bodies. In the region of Galicia, northwest of Spain, Pelobates cultripes is the amphibian with the most restricted distribution, only occurring pat- chily in the south. Historically it was present in Galician inland zones (Monforte de Lemos, in Lugo; O Barco de Valdeorras, Verín, and A Limia in Ourense; Gándaras de Budiño in Pontevedra) and on the southern coast, princi- pally in the Rías Baixas (Pontevedra) and the southern littoral of A Coruña province (Galán and Fernández, 1993; Balado, Bas and Galán, 1995; Tejedo and Reques, 2002). The species is generally not threatened, except for some pe- ripheral populations. However, during the last three decades several Galician populations have © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010. Amphibia-Reptilia 31 (2010): 443-448 Also available online - www.brill.nl/amre