Morphology of limbs tubercles of Rhinella arenarum (Anura: Bufonidae).

CORTEZ R.; MARINERO V.; VIDAL M.; QUIROGA L.; MORENO D.; SANABRIA E.

Mendoza

Congreso; Biology Society XXVIII Annual Scientific Meeting; 2010

Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo

The limbs tubercles in anurans are generally used to build the caves and avoid extreme conditions of the environment. The aim of this study was identify the variation in shape and size of metacarpal and metatarsal tubercles in three populations in San Juan province. We analyze the variation in size with traditional morphometrics, and recorded the maximum length of tubers and the body length of each individual. In addition, photographs were taken of the tubercles to analyze the change in shape by geometric morphometric outline. The inner metatarsal tubercle size varies between two populations (ANOVA: p = 0.0001; p = 0.0001; p = 0.1), while the shape does not vary between the three populations (MANOVA: Wilks lambda = 0.372; P = 0.48). The size and shape of the external metacarpal tubercle differ among the three populations (ANOVA: p = 0.0001; p = 0.0001; p = 0.001, MANOVA: Wilks lambda = 0.256; P =0.03). The differential structure of the soil in the three localities, could explain this pattern of morphological variation.