Cranial morphological homogeneity in two subspecies of water deer in Chinaand Korea

Journal of Veterinary Medical Science

Yung Kun KIM¹  Daisuke KOYABU²  Junpei KIMURA³  Hang LEE¹ 

[1] Conservation Genome Resource Bank for Korean Wildlife, College of Veterinary Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul 151�?742, Korea;The University Museum, The University of Tokyo, 7�?3�?1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113�?0033, Japan;Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul 151�?742, Korea

关键词: Bergmann’s rule;    biogeography;    Hydropotes inermis;    skull;    taxonomy;   

DOI  :  10.1292/jvms.15-0037

学科分类：兽医学

来源: Japanese Society of Veterinary Science

【 摘 要 】

References(33)The water deer (Hydropotes inermis) has conventionally been classifiedinto two subspecies according to geographic distribution and pelage color pattern:H. i. inermis from China and H. i. argyropus fromKorea. However, the results of a recent molecular study have called this into question. Tofurther reappraise this classification, we examined morphological variation incraniodental measurements of these 2 subspecies. Results of univariate and multivariateanalyses demonstrated that these 2 subspecies are not well-differentiated, suggesting thatindividuals of the 2 populations share common morphological traits. Despite thedistribution of the subspecies at different latitudes, no clear morphocline was detected,suggesting that Bergmann’s rule does not apply in this case. Discriminant analysisindicated that the characteristics of individuals are shared by both populations,suggesting that not all individuals can be assigned to their original population. Resultsof principal component analysis showed that the two populations shared more than 75% ofindividuals, congruent with the �?75% rule�? of subspecies classification. In both theneighbor-joining and unweighted pair group methods with arithmetic mean cluster analyses,specimens of H. i. argyropus and H. i. inermis werehighly mixed within the cladograms. These results suggest that the overall morphologicalvariation in the 2 subspecies overlaps considerably and that there is no coherentcraniofacial difference between the 2 groups. The present findings combined with priorobservations from molecular biogeography point out that the taxonomic division of waterdeer into 2 subspecies should be revisited.

【 授权许可】

Unknown