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Morphological Differentiation of the Skull in Two Closely-related Mustelid Species (Carnivora: Mustelidae).

ABSTRACT: Alexei V. Abramov, Andrey Yu. Puzachenko, and Igor L. Tumanov (2016) A morphological differentiation (i.e., the amount of morphological space occupied) in two polecat species, Mustela putorius and M. eversmanii, has been studied. These closely related species are similar in the body size, the age of origin, and many aspects of their natural history. We have used cranial characters to estimate some parameters of morphological diversity, to compare 'morphological niche breadth' occupied by polecats in the morphological space and their overlap, assuming that variation in the characteristics of morphological diversity could be reflected in the extent of adaptive diversification. A comparison of diversity based on 23 cranial characters shows that the polecats occupied distinct areas of the morphospace. Both skull 'size' and 'shape' characters are important components of the morphological differentiation between M. putorius and M. eversmanii. It seems that the difference between these polecat species is accounted for the ecological pattern rather than the phylogenetic one. Resource partitioning and the lessening of their ecological niches' overlap in two sympatric carnivores could apparently explain the observed differences of their morphospaces. The morphological diversity of the European polecat is higher than that of the steppe polecat. A possible explanation of this phenomenon is likely to lie in the differences between prey ranges of these species. The morphological diversification in M. putorius could be facilitated by its adaptations to forest habitats of the temperate zone with a wide range of potential prey, whereas M. eversmanii could have evolved under more severe conditions of arid Eurasian habitats with a possible prey specialization.

SUBMITTER: Abramov AV

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6511815 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Studies of morphometric variation make it possible to delimit species and geographic intraspecific variation, mainly in species with wide distribution ranges. In the Neotropical otter, Lontra longicaudis, variation in the shape of the rhinarium of three potential subspecies has been described but it is not known whether there is a pattern to the morphometric variation in the skull throughout the distribution of this species. We analyzed morphological variation in the cranium (ventral view) and the mandible (lateral view) of the Neotropical otter, comparing male and female specimens and evaluating the differences between specified geographic units utilizing methods from geometric morphometrics. Specimens from the entire distribution of the species were analyzed. Between sexes, variability in the shape was determined by calculating the Procrustes distances and using Goodall's F test. Geographic variationwas analyzed using a discriminant analysis, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) on a matrix of partial warp scores, and a cluster analysis with Mahalanobis distances, allowing for similarities in shape to be identified between different geographic units. Variation in the size of the two structures was calculated based on the values for centroid size using a one-way ANOVA with a Bonferroni correction and a 95 % confidence interval. RESULTS:There was sexual dimorphism in shape for both views, with males the largest. In general, there was geographic variation in the shape and size of both the cranium and the mandible in the Neotropical otter, exhibiting a pattern that resembled Bergmann's rule. Variation in shape between geographic units could result from the presence of geographic barriers, the spatial configuration of hydrological regions, and/or the large distances between populations throughout this species' distribution. CONCLUSIONS:The Neotropical otter exhibits dimorphism in the size, but not in the shape of the skull. There is geographic variation between geographic units, and our results suggest that L.longicaudis could bea group of species. An integrative study using molecular and morphological data could elucidate its taxonomy.

Dataset Information

Morphological Differentiation of the Skull in Two Closely-related Mustelid Species (Carnivora: Mustelidae).

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