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Quantitative Genetics and Modularity in Cranial and Mandibular Morphology of Calomys expulsus

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Abstract

Patterns of genetic covariance between characters (represented by the covariance matrix \({\varvec{G}}\)) play an important role in morphological evolution, since they interact with the evolutionary forces acting over populations. They are also expected to influence the patterns expressed in their phenotypic counterparts \(({\varvec{P}})\), because of limits imposed by multiple developmental and functional restrictions on the genotype/phenotype map. We have investigated genetic covariances in the skull and mandible of the vesper mouse (Calomys expulsus) in order to estimate the degree of similarity between genetic and phenotypic covariances and its potential roots on developmental and functional factors shaping those integration patterns. We use a classic ad hoc analysis of morphological integration based on current state of art of developmental/functional factors during mammalian ontogeny and also applied a novel methodology that makes use of simulated evolutionary responses. We have obtained \({\varvec{P}}\) and \({\varvec{G}}\) that are strongly similar, for both skull and mandible; their similarity is achieved through the spatial and temporal organization of developmental and functional interactions, which are consistently recognized as hypothesis of trait associations in both matrices.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank N. P. Barros, A. M. Marcondes, F. Almeida, L. Araripe, J. M. Freschi for help with lab work; F. A. Machado, D. Melo, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on early drafts. We also thank D. Runcie and S. Murkherjee for help with their BSFG model codes. This work has been supported by grants from CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento), FAPERJ (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro), FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo), MMA (Ministério do Meio Ambiente) and MCT (Ministério de Ciência e Tecnologia).

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  1. Laboratório de Evolução de Mamíferos, Departamento de Genética e Biologia Evolutiva, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

    Guilherme Garcia & Gabriel Marroig

  2. Laboratório de Vertebrados, Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Rui Cerqueira

  3. Museu Biológico, Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

    Erika Hingst-Zaher

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Garcia, G., Hingst-Zaher, E., Cerqueira, R. et al. Quantitative Genetics and Modularity in Cranial and Mandibular Morphology of Calomys expulsus . Evol Biol 41, 619–636 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-014-9293-4

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