Genetic structure in Orkney island mice: isolation promotes morphological diversification.

ABSTRACT: Following human occupation, the house mouse has colonised numerous islands, exposing the species to a wide variety of environments. Such a colonisation process, involving successive founder events and bottlenecks, may either promote random evolution or facilitate adaptation, making the relative importance of adaptive and stochastic processes in insular evolution difficult to assess. Here, we jointly analyse genetic and morphometric variation in the house mice (Mus musculus domesticus) from the Orkney archipelago. Genetic analyses, based on mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites, revealed considerable genetic structure within the archipelago, suggestive of a high degree of isolation and long-lasting stability of the insular populations. Morphometric analyses, based on a quantification of the

SUBMITTER: Chevret P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8027461 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature