Which roe is in your backyard? Genetic make-up of two roe deer populations of central Italy

In Italy, roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) populations declined during the last centuries, reaching a minimum at the beginning of the XX century. Therefore, reintroduction and restocking operations were carried out to restore its original range, by using stocks from northern Italy, central Europe and the Balkans. Such practices led to the contact between diverging gene pools, especially in central Italy where relict populations of native roe deer (classified as C. c. italicus) had survived. The resulting introgressive hybridization has raised concerns for the genetic integrity of the Italian endemic form. We analysed roe deer from the Massa-Carrara and the Arezzo provinces (Tuscany) on a combination of biparental (microsatellites) and uniparental (mtDNA) genetic markers, aiming to disentangle the genetic make-up of these populations and evaluate the possible influence of landscape features on it.