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Swimmers, Diggers, Climbers and More, a Study of Integration Across the Mustelids’ Locomotor Apparatus (Carnivora: Mustelidae)

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Abstract

Phenotypic integration, defined as the coordinated co-variation of parts of an organism can be an important constraint on phenotypic diversification. Functional factors, by having an heterogeneous impact across the animal body, may reinforce the integration of some parts while causing a perturbation of the integration among other parts. The integration across the locomotor apparatus should thus reflect to a certain extent the locomotor ecology of the animal. Using the mustelids as study group, we track changes in the patterns of co-variation in species belonging to four different locomotor ecologies (terrestrial, semi-arboreal, semi-fossorial, and semi-aquatic). Our results highlight the strong overall integration in mustelid long bones. The main shape changes associated with co-variations between skeletal elements are the bone robustness and proportions of the epiphyses. The pattern of co-variation is, however, only slightly impacted by allometry. Changes in co-variation between species mostly scale with phylogenetic divergence time, except for the (Mustela putorius, M. eversmanni, M. lutreola) clade which, despite a short divergence time, presents strong differences in co-variation. Co-variation patterns differ between locomotor ecologies, but few of these variations match the hypothesis of a reduction of integration due to functional specialization. This may reflect our lack of knowledge on the functional modules in species with locomotor ecologies that differ from terrestrial locomotion rather than invalidate our a priori hypotheses.

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Acknowledgements

The authors want to thank all the collection curators for the loan of the specimens. Suzanne Peurach of the National Museum of Natural History, Washington; Judith Marie Chupasko of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard; Loïc Costeur of the Naturhistorisches Museum, Basel; Christiane Funk and Frieder Mayer of the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin; Link E. Olson and Aren Gunderson of the University of the Alaska Museum, Fairbanks; Géraldine Véron, Jacques Cuisin, Julie Villemain, and Céline Bens of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris; Stefan Merker of the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde, Stuttgart; Willem Wendelen of the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren. The authors are grateful to Amandine Blin, Michel Baylac for the access to the MNHN platform for morphometrics (UMS 2700) and for their advices. LB-D thanks the doctoral school ‘Frontières du vivant’ and the Bettencourt Schueller foundation. LB-D, AIH and AnH received financial support from the ANR-13-PDOC-0011. A-CF thanks the Marie-Skłodowska Curie fellowship (EU project 655694 – GETAGRIP) for funding.

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  1. UMR 7179, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Mécadev, 57 rue Cuvier, CP 55, 75005, Paris, France

    Léo Botton-Divet, Alexandra Houssaye, Anthony Herrel & Anne-Claire Fabre

  2. UMR 7205, CNRS/MNHN/UPMC/EPHE, Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité (ISYEB), Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, 45 rue Buffon, 75005, Paris, France

    Raphaël Cornette

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Botton-Divet, L., Houssaye, A., Herrel, A. et al. Swimmers, Diggers, Climbers and More, a Study of Integration Across the Mustelids’ Locomotor Apparatus (Carnivora: Mustelidae). Evol Biol 45, 182–195 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-017-9442-7

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