Variation in Features of the Cranium of the Musk Deer Moschus moschiferus L. in Different Phases of the Population Cycle
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Variation in Features of the Cranium of the Musk Deer Moschus moschiferus L. in Different Phases of the Population Cycle V. I. Prikhod’ko* Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 119071 Russia *e-mail: [email protected] Received January 19, 2018; revised January 20, 2019; accepted January 20, 2019
Abstract—The variation in four characters (three craniometrical and one nonmetric with supplemental bones) was investigated in 105 craniums of musk deer in different phases (depression and growth) of the population cycle from the East Sayan mountains. The duration of the cycle was 50 years, which corresponds to ten generations of animals. The results obtained show the multidirectional relation of skull sizes (craniometric variation) with phases in the population number in animals of different sexes. The variability of nonmetric characteristics of the skull is characterized by the greatest frequency of manifestation and the maximum quantity of additional bones during the phase of population depression in animals of both sexes, a gradual decrease in their quantity during the growth phase, and then complete loss of supplemental bones when there is an increase in population numbers. The revealed phene of the skull is a key cranial variation and may be used as a way for monitoring natural populations of rare and disappearing subspecies of musk deer. DOI: 10.1134/S106235902004010X
INTRODUCTION The most important manifestation of intraspecific variability is the morphological heterogeneity of natural populations during the transformation of their structures (Odum, 1975; Schwartz, 1977, 1980). In most cases, morphological variability is caused by periodic fluctuations in abundance, including changes in the spatial and ethological structure of geographical populations in different phases of population cycles (Schwartz, 1977, 1980; Shilov, 1977). The variability of small mammal populations in the process of population dynamics is associated with the influence of abiotic environmental factors or seasonal availability of food in certain periods of animal growth (Krebs, 1964; Krebs and Myers, 1974; Mihok and Fuller, 1981; Lidicker and Ostfeld, 1991; Wolff, 1993; Vasiliev et al., 2004). During cyclic fluctuations in numbers, individuals survive and are selected with genetically different qualities that are adapted to high or low population densities (Krebs, 1978; Shilov, 1991). One of the problems that researchers face is difficulty in identifying correlations between the dynamics of abundance and the variability of morphological characters for comparable phases of the ungulate population cycle. Fluctuations in the abundance in wild ungulates have been proved, as have their causes associated with a set of environmental conditions (Lomanov, 1995; Shilov, 1997) or anthropogenic (Danilkin, 2009) factors. The population dynamics of wild ungu-
lates affects the ecological structure and phenogenotypic variability of populations. For the saiga Saiga tatarica L. based on a statistical analysis of
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