A morphometric and genetic framework for the genus Gazella de Blainville, 1816 (Ruminantia: Bovidae) with special focus on Arabian and Levantine mountain gazelles |
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| Authors: | Eva V Bärmann Torsten Wronski Hannes Lerp Beatriz Azanza Saskia Börner Dirk Erpenbeck Gertrud E Rössner Gert Wörheide |
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| Institution: | 1. Museum of Zoology, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, , Cambridge, CB2 3EJ UK;2. Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz‐Institut für Evolutions‐ und Biodiversit?tsforschung, , 10115 Berlin, Germany;3. Zoological Society of London, Conservation Programmes, , London, NW1 4RY UK;4. King Khalid Wildlife Research Centre, Saudi Wildlife Authority, , Riyadh, 11575 Saudi Arabia;5. Evolutionary Ecology Group, J.W. Goethe–University Frankfurt, , 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany;6. Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra (Paleontología) and IUCA, Universidad Zaragoza, , 50009 Zaragoza, Spain;7. SNSB – Bayerische Staatssammlung für Pal?ontologie und Geologie, , 80333 München, Germany;8. Department für Geo‐ und Umweltwissenschaften, Ludwig‐Maximilians‐Universit?t München, , 80333 München, Germany;9. GeoBio‐CenterLMU, , 80333 München, Germany |
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| Abstract: | Gazella is one of the most species‐rich genera within horned ruminants. Despite overall similarity in body size and morphology, gazelles show variability in coloration and horn morphology. Unfortunately, however, species differentiation based on these characters, or on discrete skull characters, is very difficult due to high intraspecific variability. Furthermore, most species have fragmented and allopatric distributions, so that species boundaries were hard to define in the past. Mitochondrial DNA sequences have proven useful for investigating gazelle taxonomy in recent years, but especially for old museum material, i.e. type specimens, destructive sampling is often impossible. We provide a comprehensive morphometric framework for the genus Gazella based on linear skull measurements reconciled with results from molecular phylogenetic analysis based on the largest dataset available so far. In particular for males, the skull morphology shows interspecific differences concurrent with DNA data and provides a reliable tool for species identification. Based on morphometric data we synonymize G. karamii with G. marica, and confirm the identification of the G. arabica and G. a. rueppelli type skulls from analyses of mitochondrial DNA sequences. © 2013 The Linnean Society of London |
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| Keywords: | Antilopinae discriminant analysis mitochondrial DNA phylogenetic analysis principal component analysis skull |
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