Ecogeographical Variation in Skull Shape of South-American Canids: Abiotic or Biotic Processes?

ABSTRACT: Species morphological changes can be mutually influenced by environmental or biotic factors, such as competition. South American canids represent a quite recent radiation of taxa that evolved forms very disparate in phenotype, ecology and behaviour. Today, in the central part of South America there is one dominant large species (the maned wolf, Chrysocyon brachyurus) that directly influence sympatric smaller taxa via interspecific killing. Further south, three species of similar sized foxes (Lycalopex spp.) share the same habitats. Such unique combination of taxa and geographic distribution makes South American dogs an ideal group to test for the simultaneous impact of climate and competition on phenotypic variation. Using geometric morphometrics, we quantified skull size and

SUBMITTER: de Moura Bubadue J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4860408 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature