ABSTRACT
Indigenous crayfi sh species are under pressure because of pollution, habitat loss, overfi shing and overexploitation. Initially, conservation management plans consisted of restoring the habitat and also of population translocations but very often without knowledge of their taxonomic status. Even if ecological managers wanted to be informed, the “traditional taxonomy”, based on morphological characters, was discouraging because it could indicate several types of classifi cation. Sound knowledge of systematic relationships in a given taxon, especially within the problematic range from geographically separated populations to closely related species is essential for restocking operations, for promoting gene fl ow
Université de Poitiers, Laboratoire Ecologie & Biologie des Interactions - UMR CNRS 7267, Equipe Ecologie Evolution Symbiose - Bât B8, 5 rue Albert Turpin, TSA 51106, 86073, Poitiers Cedex 9, France.
