Population demographics of the maternal Darevskia Arribas, 1999 species D. raddei (Boettger, 1892) from eastern Türkiye

Abstract The Darevskia raddei complex shares mtDNA with five out of seven parthenogenetic Darevskia species. The animal‘s distribution range includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran and Türkiye, and it possibly also occurs in Turkmenistan. Despite its evolutionary and ecological importance, this species has not been studied demographically and naturally no comparisons have been made among the parthenogenetic lineages. Here, we document the life history of five D. raddei populations mainly by using skeletochronology. The minimum age for all populations was calculated to be three years old. After three hibernations, they grow beyond 40 mm of snout-vent length. There were significant age differences between sexes in two of the populations studied. However, no body size difference between sexes was calculated in all populations. In some cases age and body size were significantly different between populations. In none of the results there was a relation with the altitude or climate of the distribution area. The average and maximum ages were found to be higher in populations from all studied parthenogenetic species with which D. raddei is related.