Ricerc@Sapienza

Italian native populations of Mediterranean brown trout belong to the Salmo trutta complex. This species complex includes many mitochondrial lineages and phenotypes that have caused taxonomic controversies over time. The spatial distribution and the genetic diversity of these fishes are threatened by habitat destruction, global warming and, mainly, by the introduction of domestic trout of Atlantic origin. Indeed allochthonous trouts were massively restocked in Italian rivers for a century and they admixed with native populations.

Mediterranean populations of brown trout (Salmo trutta L. complex) have lost a large part of their genetic distinctiveness, mostly due to massive restocking, and the waters of the Gardens of Ninfa (province of Latina, central Italy, Site of Community Importance since 2013) are regarded as one of a few potential reservoirs of autochthonous trout lineages in the Tyrrhenian drainage of the Italian peninsula.