Phenotypic Variability and Heritability of the Cephalic Region of Caiman latirostris

IMHOFF C; GIRI F; SIROSKI P; AMAVET P

JOURNAL OF MORPHOLOGY

WILEY-LISS, DIV JOHN WILEY & SONS INC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2016

0362-2525

The study of the cephalic shape of crocodilianis relevant in the fields of ecology, systematics,evolution, and conservation. Therefore, the integrationof geometric analysis within quantitative geneticsallows the evaluation of the inheritable shape components.In this study, the dorsal cephalic region of 210Caiman latirostris hatchlings was analyzed from sevenpopulations in Santa Fe, Argentina, to detect intra-,and inter-population phenotypic variability, and todetermine the heritability of biological shape and size,using newly available geometric morphometric tools.The principal component analysis showed two configurationsof cephalic shape that could be related to sexualdimorphism. In the canonical variate analysis, Procrustesdistances between groups indicated that thereare differences in shape among populations. Furthermore,the method of partial least squares indicated acovariation between cephalic shape and environmentalvariables. Estimates of the heritability of shape andsize were high, indicating that the components of thesefeatures are susceptible to the selection. We found significantdifferences of skull size among populations.It was observed that those populations which wereexposed to a greater number of days at natural incubationand at higher temperatures resulted in larger cephalic size.