Assessment of genetic information in morphometric traits: Geographic patterns and evolutionary interpretation

Abstract

Comparative studies often indicate a lack of concordant geographic patterns for morphometric and genic traits. Herein, it is shown that the genetic variance of morphometric traits can be partitioned into within- and among-group components as is traditionally done with genic data. Employing these methods demonstrates that there is considerable congruence for estimates of differentiation from genic and morphometric data for populations of the Texas mouse, Peromyscus attwateri. Within-group genetic variances of morphometric traits, relative to that of genic traits, also can be estimated. From these estimates, a pseudo-heritability can be obtained. Pseudo-heritabilities generally are low, indicating that evolutionary forces have removed much of the genetic variation within groups, or that environmental variation is considerable for morphometric traits. The combined use of genic and morphometric traits offer greater insight into past evolution that has lead to geographic patterns.