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Geographic morphological variation of Gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) and sex identification: using morphometric characters and molecular markers

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Abstract

Gentoo penguins Pygoscelis papua have sexual dimorphism, which females have smaller morphological measurements than males. P. papua also shows a geographic morphological variation, decreasing in size toward southern latitudes. Therefore, morphological measurements may vary in space and overlap in the distribution of traits between females and males, which could lead to sex misidentification. A total of 300 blood samples and eight measurements and weight were obtained for Gentoo penguins from three localities in the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. The molecular sex was identified for all individuals using two primer pairs (P2/P8 and PL/PR). We obtained higher success amplification for P2/P8 compared to PL/PR. We used 172 adults to create a morphological discriminant function using the backward stepwise method. We established a discriminant function for sex identification of each locality due to significant morphological differences found between sexes and between the three studied localities for adult Gentoo penguins. Using these functions, the percentages of individuals correctly assigned was 93.87 % in Ardley Island, 88.09 % in Bernardo O’Higgins, and 83.95 % in Gabriel Gonzalez Videla. The most southern locality studied was the most morphologically divergent from the others and with low divergence between sexes. Moreover, we also established a general function for the Gentoo penguin, which can be used to identify the sex of penguins from a broad number of localities. Therefore, molecular and biometric are useful techniques for sexing Gentoo penguins.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by Instituto Antártico Chileno (INACH-G_06-11; INACH-T-27-10 and INACH MG_02-12). D. Noll and B. Ramos for help in molecular procedures. L. Moreno and J. Hernandez for help in the field. F. Rengifo and N. Sallaberry for comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ecosistemas y Medio Ambiente, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Macul, Santiago, Chile

    Paulina Valenzuela-Guerra, David Morales-Moraga & Juliana A. Vianna

  2. Departamento de Ciencias Pecuarias, Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias, Universidad de Concepción, Chillán, Chile

    Daniel González-Acuña

Authors
  1. Paulina Valenzuela-Guerra
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  2. David Morales-Moraga
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  3. Daniel González-Acuña
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  4. Juliana A. Vianna
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Correspondence to Juliana A. Vianna.

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Valenzuela-Guerra, P., Morales-Moraga, D., González-Acuña, D. et al. Geographic morphological variation of Gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) and sex identification: using morphometric characters and molecular markers. Polar Biol 36, 1723–1734 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-013-1389-2

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