Studies on Crested Newts in Salzburg (Austria) and Neighbouring Regions

Crested newts are fascinating amphibians due to their spectacular courtship display, high adaptation to the aquatic habitat, dragon-like appearance and many other aspects of their biology.They are severely threatened in Central Europe despite strong protection. The reasons for the decline are manifold. Destruction and fragmentation of habitats are the main factors. As these habitats must meet special requirements that also support many other species, they are excellent indicators for biodiversity. In the EU-Habitats Directive crested newts are listed in Appendix II & IV. Therefore data on their conservation status have high importance. Conservation-related research often faces the problem of being too precise for funding by public authorities, but also too little innovative for support of the scientic community. However, basic and conservation-related research are intrinsically tied to each other when conservation action plans are needed.The aim of this thesis was to combine these two aspects when studying distribution, habitatfeatures, hybridisation, population genetics and conservation status of crested newts in Salzburg(Austria) and surrounding regions.