Indications for a recent Holarctic expansion of pike based on a preliminary study of mtDNA variation

Abstract

An extremely limited haplotypic diversity within populations and a strikingly low divergence between European and Canadian haplotypes were found in pike Esox lucius . Certain haplotypes were associated with a particular geographical region in Europe: a widespread European and a restricted Hungarian–Norwegian type. The low haplotypic intraspecific divergence suggests a late Pleistocene expansion from an ancestral population.