The cosmopolitan freshwater oligochaete
Tubifex tubifex
is an important health indicator of the
aquatic environment. Water pollutants can affect the
intraspecific biodiversity grade of local
Tubifex colonies. A
genetic profile of specimens collected in an environment
with reduced anthropic presence is particularly important
to define genetic variability in unperturbed
Tubifex populations,
and it is still missing in the international literature.
Therefore, it has been performed the analysis of lineage
composition in a
T. tubifex colony from high mountain
spring ponds in Central Italy, characterized by a very low
concentration of heavy metals. The sampling was performed
during spring 2010 and 2011, in the Sett’acque
valley (1,900 m above mean sea level), within the township
of Lucoli. Data presented in this work depicted a
peculiar composition of the population, characterized by a
reduced complexity compared to other urban environments,
and with no specimens belonging to the lineage I,
largely described in many European populations. Interestingly,
lineage 2e, previously discovered only in a natural
reserve, results to be the most common lineage in this
population. Considerations on environmental health and
genetic evolution are discussed.
