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13 December 2019 Do island populations differ in size and shape compared to mainland counterparts?
Sergio Ticul Álvarez-Castañeda, Laura A. Nájera-Cortazar
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Adaptation and evolution of terrestrial vertebrates inhabiting islands have been the topic of many studies, particularly those seeking to identify trends or patterns in body size in mammals, albeit not necessarily in shape, in relation to mainland populations. The spiny pocket mouse, Chaetodipus spinatus, is distributed in the Baja California peninsula and its surrounding islands. Insular populations became isolated ∼12,000 due to changes in sea level; these populations' matrilinear (mitochondrial) DNA shows minor interpopulation variation. We tested the hypothesis that adaptation and evolution in these island populations involve variation in both skull size and skull shape (using geometric morphometrics) relative to mainland populations, rather than only in size as previously assumed. A total of 363 specimens from 15 insular and peninsular populations were used in analysis of the skull length and geometric morphometric analyses. Our findings revealed significant differences related to skull size among population. The skull shape analyses showed two significantly different morphotypes: one for all island specimens and one for all mainland samples. Our analyses support the hypothesis that insular populations may not only vary in size relative to mainland populations, but may also show variations in shape, regardless of differing conditions across islands.

© 2019 American Society of Mammalogists, www.mammalogy.org
Sergio Ticul Álvarez-Castañeda and Laura A. Nájera-Cortazar "Do island populations differ in size and shape compared to mainland counterparts?," Journal of Mammalogy 101(2), 373-385, (13 December 2019). https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyz193
Received: 12 January 2018; Accepted: 14 November 2019; Published: 13 December 2019
KEYWORDS
Adaptation
geometric morphometrics
islands
morphology
Rodentia
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