Craniological variability of sables from Far East

M.N. Ranyuk and V.G. Monakhov

Proceedings of the Zoological Institute RAS, 2017, 321(2): 199–217 · https://doi.org/10.31610/trudyzin/2017.321.2.199

Full text

Abstract

Sable is a valuable game species with modern area from Urals to Kamchatka Peninsula. There is a hypothesis of the Far East origin of the species and existing of the Pleistocene refugia wherefrom sables dispersed on the territory of Eurasia. We studied the intraspecies diversity of sable populations from different regions of the Far East. Previous studies have found high level of variability for skulls size and fur color of Far East populations of the sable. We analysed 22 non-metric traits of the skull of 826 animals from 14 geographic samples. Mean measure of divergence between 14 samples varied from 0.001 to 0.238. Among studied isolated populations, the sables from Sakhalin Island do not demonstrate differences from the continental sample in small aberrations of the skull, whereas the sample from the Kamchatka Peninsula is somewhat different from other samples in craniological characters. There are some population differences in sexual dimorphism: some samples (Amgun, Kamchatka, V. Kolyma, Pilda, Uda) shows similarity between males and females in frequencies of non-metric characters; other samples (Sakhalin, Zeya, Okhota, Nyukzha) have a population level of phenetic distances between sex groups. Populations of the sables from the Far East demonstrate spatial heterogeneity in variability of non-metric traits of the skull, which is also characteristic of other morphological and genetic characters studied by previous researches.

Key words

craniological traits, Far East, geographic variability, morphologic diversity, sable

Submitted December 5, 2016 · Accepted March 30, 2017 · Published June 26, 2017

References

Abramov K.G. 1967. Sable in hunting of the Far East. Nauka, Moscow, 116 p. [In Russian].

Aristov A.A. and Baryshnikov G.F. 2001. The mammals of Russia and adjacent territories: carnivores and pinnipeds. Saint Petersburg: 218–225. [In Russian].

Bakeev N.N., Monakhov G.I. and Sinitsyn A.A. 2003. The Sable. Vyatka, 336 p. [In Russian].

Balmysheva N.P. and Solovenchuk L.L. 1999. Association between mutations of mitochondrial DNA genes for citochrome b and NADH dehydrogenase 5/6 in sable Martes zibellina L. Russian Journal of Genetic, 35(12): 1447–1451.

Dubinin E.A. and Valentsev A.S. 2003. On the population structure of the Kamchatka sable. Russian Journal of Ecology, 34(5): 344–349. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025678327071

Hartman S.E. 1980. Geographic variation analysis of Dipodomys ordii using nonmetric cranial traits. Journal of Mammalogy, 61(3): 436–448. https://doi.org/10.2307/1379837

Heptner V.G., Naumov N.N., Yurgenson P.B., Sludskiy A.A., Chirkova A.F. and Bannikov A.G. 1967. Mammals of the Soviet Union. Vol. 2. Vysshaya Shkola, Moscow: 507–533. [In Russian].

Kinoshita G., Sato J.J., Meschersky I.G., Pishchulina S.L., Simakin L.V., Rozhnov V.V., Malyarchuk B.A., Derenko M.V., Denisova G.A., Frisman L.V., Kryukov A.P., Hosoda T. and Suzuki H. 2015. Colonization history of the sable Martes zibellina (Mammalia, Carnivora) on the marginal peninsula and islands of northeastern Eurasia. Journal of Mammalogy, 96: 172–184. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyu021

Li B., Malyarchuk B., Ma Z., Derenko M., Zhao J. and Zhouet X. 2013. Phylogeography of sable (Martes zibellina L. 1758) in the southeast portion of its range based on mitochondrial DNA variation: highlighting the evolutionary history of the sable. Acta Theriologica, 58: 139–148. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-012-0100-2

Malyarchuk B.A., Petrovskaya A.V. and Derenko M.V. 2010. Intraspecific structure of sable Martes zibellina inferred from nucleotide variation of the mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b gene. Russian Journal of Genetics, 46(1): 64–68. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1022795410010102

Monakhov G.I. 1976. Geographic variation and taxonomic structure of the sable of Soviet Union’s fauna. Trudy VNIIOZ, 26: 54–86. [In Russian].

Monakhov V.G. 1995. Sable of the Urals, Priobye and the Eniseyskaya Siberia: results of acclimatization. Bank of the cultural information, Ekaterinburg, 154 p. [In Russian].

Monakhov V.G. 2006. Dynamics of the dimensions and phenotype structure of the sable in area. Bank of the cultural information, Ekaterinburg, 202 p. [In Russian].

Monakhov V.G. 2012. Age variability of the sexual size dimorphism in sables in nature and captivity. Russian Journal of Developmental Biology, 43(4): 232–243. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1062360412040066

Monakhov V.G. 2015. Geographic variation of the sable (Martes zibellina L., 1758) within the range, and phylogeography. Russian Journal of Ecology, 46(3): 279–288. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1067413615030078

Monakhov V.G. 2016. Morphological peculiarities as indicators of natural history of sable (Martes zibellina) in North-Asia Pacific coast. Russian Journal of Ecology, 47 (5): 493–500. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1067413616050088

Pavlinov I.Ya. and Rossolimo O.L. 1979. Geographic variation and interspecies’ systematic of sable (Martes zibellina L.) on the territory of the USSR. Trudy Zoologiccheskogo muzeya Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 18: 241–256. [In Russian].

Pavlov M.P., Korsakova I.B., Timofeev V.V. and Safonov V.G. 1973. Acclimatization of game species of the mammals and birds in the USSR. Kirov. 536 p. [In Russian].

Petrovskaya A.V. 2007. Genetic structure of the sable Martes zibellina L. populations from Magadan oblast as inferred from mitochondrial DNA variation. Russian Journal of Genetics, 43(4): 424–429. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1022795407040114

Ranyuk M.N. and Monakhov V.G. 2011. Variability of cranial characters in acclimatized sable (Martes zibellina) populations. Biology Bulletin, 38(8): 821–833. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1062359011080061

Rozhnov V.V., Pishchulina S.L., Meschersky I.G., Simakin L.V., Lazebny O.E. and Kashtanov S.N. 2013. Genetic structure of sable (Martes zibellina L.) from Eurasia based on distribution of mitochondrial lineages. Russian Journal of Genetics, 49(2): 220–227. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1022795413020105

Sato J.J., Hosoda T., Kryukov A.P., Kartavtseva I.V. and Suzuki H. 2011. Genetic diversity of the sable (Martes zibellina, Mustelidae) in Russian Far East and Hokkaido inferred from mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 gene sequences. Mammal Study, 36: 209–222. https://doi.org/10.3106/041.036.0404

Siegel S. and Castellan N.J. 1988. Nonparametric statistics for the behavioral sciences. McGraw-Hill, New York, 399 p.

Sjovold T. 1977. Non-metrical divergence between skeletal populations. The theorical foundation and biological importance of C.A.B. Smith’s Mean Mesure of Divergence. Ossa, 4(1): 1–133.

Shishatskaya D.I. and Frisman L.V. 2014. Preliminary data on the genetic variability of sables (Martes zibellina L.) from middle Amur Region: analysis of two microsatellite loci. Regionalnye problemy, 17(2): 60–64. [In Russian]

Smith C.A.B. 1972. Review of T.S. Constants Westermann: Coefficients of Biological Distance. Annals of Human Genetics, 36: 241–245.

Timofeev V.V. and Nadeev V.N. 1955. The Sable. Zagotizdat, Moscow, 404 p. [In Russian].

Valentsev A.S. and Fil’ V.I. 2012. The Sable of Kamchatka: ecology, hunting, resource management, humanization of killing traps. Borisova T.V, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, 248 p. [In Russian].