UNv RSITY OF AT URBANACHAMPWQN NATURAL HIST. SURVEY )•-) t FIELDIANA ... Zoology """"""mm Published by Field Museum of Natural History AUG 6 1985 20 LIBRARY ON THE PHYLETIC WEIGHT OF MENSURAL CRANIAL CHARACTERS IN CHIPMUNKS AND THEIR ALLIES (RODENTIA: SCIURIDAE) BRUCE D. PATTERSON July 29, 1983 Publication 1348 ON THE PHYLETIC WEIGHT OF MENSURAL CRANIAL CHARACTERS IN CHIPMUNKS AND THEIR ALLIES (RODENTIA: SCIURIDAE) FIELDIANA Zoology Published by Field Museum of Natural History New Series, No. 20 ON THE PHYLETIC WEIGHT OF MENSURAL CRANIAL CHARACTERS IN CHIPMUNKS AND THEIR ALLIES (RODENTIA: SCIURIDAE) BRUCE D. PATTERSON Assistant Curator Division of Mammals Department of Zoology Field Museum of Natural History Accepted for publication July 15, 1982 July 29, 1983 Publication 1348 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-84350 ISSN 0015-0754 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS Abstract 1 Introduction' 1 Methods and Materials 3 Results 6 Univariate Analyses 6 Bivariate Analyses 8 Multivariate Analyses 12 Discussion 15 Mandibular Morphology 17 Cranial Morphology in Chipmunks and Related Forms 18 Acknowledgments 21 Literature Cited 22 Appendix: Specimens Examined 24 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Geographic locations of the five sampled populations 3 2. Skull of Eutamias minimus from the LaSal Mountains, Utah 5 3. Histogram of correlation coefficients among the 28 mensural characters in chipmunks 11 4. Plot of canonical variate loadings of 86 chipmunks on the first canonical variates for "taxonomic" and "mandibular" characters 13 LIST OF TABLES 1. Means, coefficients of variation, and sample size of 28 cranial and mandibular characters of least chipmunks 7 2. Product-moment correlation matrix for "taxonomic" characters 9 3. Product-moment correlation matrix for "mandibular" characters 10 4. Product-moment correlation matrix for "taxonomic" and "mandibular" characters 10 5. Results of canonical correlation analysis, showing Bartlett's test for the remaining eigenvalues 12 6. Canonical variate loadings, variance extracted, and redundancy for the first two canonical variates 14 7. Simple linear regression analyses of loadings on the first canonical variates vs. body size 15 ABSTRACT This study outlines a method for investigating the phyletic information or "weight" in mensural cranial characters in the Sciuridae. Five isolated populations of least chipmunks (Eutamias minimus) form the frame of reference for this analysis. The study examines the hypothesis that divergence in a set of mainly cranial characters used in taxonomy ("taxonomic" characters) differs from that evident in a set of "mandibular" characters. Mandibular characters in many other animals are known to be genetically and ontogenetically responsive to ecological conditions. Therefore, if taxonomic characters are to provide unique information on the phyletic relationships of chipmunks, patterns in their variability should contrast with mandibular patterns. Taxonomic and mandibular characters differ in mean values among the five populations to comparable extents. Although mandibular characters tend to be more variable, they tend also to be more highly correlated with one another than are taxonomic characters. Correlations of characters within the taxonomic and mandibular sets are apparently no greater than between-set correlations; both are low. The relative interdependence of taxonomic and mandibular characters is emphasized by a canonical correlation analysis which suggests that individuals tend to occupy the same relative positions in each of the two morphological spaces. Results of the canonical correlation analysis must be considered tentative in view of the facts that (1) relatively little of the variation in original characters is represented in the canonical variates, and (2) no comparable study exists for contrast. Nevertheless, this study helps to explain some confusing patterns of cranial morphology in chipmunks and, by extension, their allies. Cranial morphology in these animals is apparently tied to environmental conditions, to an extent at least comparable with mandibular morphology. In this respect, chipmunks resemble tree squirrels more closely than ground squirrels. Because of this responsiveness, phenetic studies of cranial morphology in chipmunks may lead to better classifications of ecological conditions than of phyletic relationships (cf . Patterson, 1981). INTRODUCTION Characters of the skin and skull have served for many years as the foundation of mammalian classification. Higher taxa are commonly distinguished by one or more qualitatively different characters, whose variation is thereby amenable to "phylogenetic" analysis (e.g., Marshall, 1977). In contrast, mammalian species and subspecies commonly lack such distinctive attributes, and the study of their interrelationships is thus typically limited to "phenetic" approaches (e.g., 2 FIELDIANA: ZOOLOGY Genoways, 1973). With the advent of computers and the development of multivariate statistical packages, mammalian systematists have increasingly employed mensural cranial characters in taxonomic decision-making. The use of mensural cranial characters in mammalian classification is clouded by our ignorance of components of cranial variability (cf. Leamy, 1977; Straney & Patton, 1980). While distinct patterns of cranial morphology may reflect degrees of phyletic relatedness, it is equally possible that they may result from the distinctive responses of a given underlying genome to different environmental conditions. Problems raised by environmental determination of cranial morphology are exacerbated by the fact that phyletic lineages and environments are both based in geography. Thus, simple geographic patterns of cranial morphology can, themselves, neither support nor refute the importance of environmental determination. Are complex, laboratory analyses of morphological genetics (e.g., Atchley et al., 1981) the only reasonable avenue of inquiry? Another means of approaching this question is afforded by the intercorrelations of characters. Specifically, if one can establish a priori a character set that is genetically or ontogenetically responsive to ecological conditions, then one can assess the concordance of these characters with those in question. Close correspondence of characters in the two sets would argue for the importance of ecological determination. Conversely, independent responses would permit cranial characters to have "phyletic weight" [sensu Mayr, 1969) and hence taxonomic utility. Available data indicate that characters of the mandible are often environmentally plastic. Functional morphologists generally recognize that the "size and shape [of the mandible] is maintained in being as a response to the primary morphogenetic demands of functionally related tissues" (Moss & Meehan, 1970, p. 11). Characters of the mandible can thereby reflect the developmental importance of environmental conditions, such as nutrition and diet (McCance, 1962; Moore, 1965; Tonge & McCance, 1965). Characters of the mandible may also reflect divergent selection pressures resulting from different resource-use patterns (the "Darwin principle"; e.g., Johnston, 1969; Behle, 1973; Bamett, 1977). In either case, such characters should be accorded "particularly low taxonomic value" (Mayr, 1969, p. 125). If the assumption is valid that mandibular morphology closely corresponds to environmental conditions, then it is possible to assess the taxonomic worth of traditionally employed characters of the general conformation of the cranium. This paper compares patterns of variability in taxonomic and mandibular char- acters among isolated, montane populations of chipmunks, genus Eutamias (Ro- dentia: Sciuridae). A recent study of geographic variation in the Colorado chip- munks (Eutamias quadrivittatus group) suggested that cranial and mandibular characters being used in chipmunk taxonomy may be responsive to environmental conditions associated with the habitats that different montane populations occupy (Patterson, 1981). Another study suggested that the cranial morphology of Doug- las squirrels (Tamiasciurus douglasii) reflects the conifer species they feed upon (Lindsay, 1982). If such conclusions are warranted, then patterns of morphology in taxonomic and mandibular character sets should largely coincide, both being principally determined by ambient environmental conditions. If, in contrast, tax- onomic (chiefly cranial) characters more closely reflect phyletic affinities, discor- dance in the two character sets should be evident, because mandibles can be PATTERSON: CRANIAL CHARACTERS IN CHIPMUNKS 3 expected to reflect ecological conditions. The test of this hypothesis examined cranial and mandibular characters in a group of chipmunks, all currently classified as Eutamias minimus operarius, which occupy a spectrum of environmental condi- tions. METHODS AND MATERIALS Five montane populations of least chipmunks were selected for study, repre- senting a considerable latitudinal extent (fig. 1). Populations are as follows: (1) Sierra Blanca, New Mexico (lat. 33°23'N, long. 105°48'W), (2) northeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico (lat. 35°47'N, long. 105o49'W), (3) northeast of Canjilon, New Mexico (lat. 36°28'N, long. 106°26'W), (4) west, northwest of Tres Piedras, New Mexico (lat. 36°43'N, long. 106°14'W), and (5) LaSal Mountains, Utah (lat. 38°23'N, long. 109°11'W). Precise locality information for specimens comprising these populations is given in the Appendix. On Sierra Blanca in southern New 200 km Fig. 1. Geographic locations of the five sampled populations. 4 FIELDIANA: ZOOLOGY Mexico, least chipmunks are confined to habitats within the glacial cirque on that peak, which are characterized by extensive boulder fields (Conley, 1970). In north- ern New Mexico, £. minimus occurs in mesic coniferous forests, sage brushlands, and alpine meadows (Bailey, 1931). In contrast, I coUected the sample from the LaSal Mountains in 1980 from an open, xeric pine forest along the southeastern foothills of the mountains proper. The five studied populations therefore occur in a variety of ecological conditions. Information on head-and-body length and weight was taken from the collector's tag; other data were gathered by me from skulls and jaws using dial calipers and were recorded to the nearest 0.1 mm. Cranial and mandibular characters used in the present analysis are defined by numbers in the various aspects (denoted by letters) of Figure 2. The characters may be classified into three groups, the first two being combined as "taxonomic" characters, consisting of cranial and mandibular characters used in making taxonomic inferences in various systematic studies of chipmunks, and the third consisting of exclusively "mandibular" characters se- lected in this study for their probable functional significance. The first group is comprised of characters I employed in systematic studies of the Eutamias quadri- vittatus species complex (Patterson, 1980, 1981; see also Johnson, 1943; Conley, 1970). These include: GLS, greatest length of skull — 1, 2 (A); ZB, zygomatic breadth— 3, 4 (A); CB, cranial breadth— 5, 6, (A); ML, mandibular length— 33, 34 (E; see Levenson et al., in review, for another study drawing taxonomic conclu- sions from mandibular morphology in chipmunks); NL, nasal length — 1, 9 (A); MTR, length of maxillary molar toothrow — 16, 21 (C); IOB, least interorbital breadth— 11, 12 (A); NW, nasal width— 13, 14 (A); DOL, diagonal length of orbit— 22, 23 (C); PL, premaxillary length— 1, 10 (A, B); CD, cranial depth— 17, 18 (B). The second group consists of other characters of general cranial conformation, some of which have been used in taxonomic investigations by Howell (1929) and Hoffmeister & Ellis (1979). These are: PTL, palatillar length— 15, 24 (C); MD, length of maxillary diastema — 15, 16 (B, C); LAB, length of auditory bulla — 25, 26 (C); OIL, distance between orbit and incisive foramen — 22, 27 (C); PW, palatal width at third premolar— 28, 29 (C); BOS, basioccipital length— 30, 31 (C); IL, length of incisive foramen — 27, 32 (C); TZ, length of zygomatic arch at posterior union with skull— 19, 20 (B); and FW, frontal width— 7, 8 (A). Patterns of variation in these "taxonomic" (mainly cranial) characters were compared with those shown by mandibular characters. Mandibular characters examined (in addition to ML, above) are: MC, distance between mental foramen and articular condyle — 33, 35 (D); MAD, distance between anterior alveolus of M3 and articular condyle — 33, 36 (E); CVH, distance between tips of coronoid and ventral angular processes — 37, 38 (D); CDH, distance between tips of coronoid and dorsal angular processes — 37, 39 (D); AG, greatest width of angular processes — 38, 40 (E); AL, least width of angular processes — 41, 42 (D); AF, distance between mandibular foramen and articular condyle — 33, 43 (E); WMM, width of mandibular molars (M2 and M3) — 36, 44 (E). Descriptive statistics and univariate analyses of variance were obtained for adult specimens (i.e., permanent P4 showing wear) via BMDP7D (Dixon, 1977). The equality of group means was assessed via analysis of variance, assuming equality of group variances. Inspection of Welch and Brown-Forsythe test statistics (Dixon, 1977), which do not assume equal variances, provided highly similar results. Relative variability of characters was determined by the coefficient of variation, calculated on a desk calculator as the standard deviation divided by the mean |1 3 s I c O 0) S'<3 3 a-3 1 r-i >Trooooinso«Nooo^r*icooot^\omm r-c i-c i-H iH I JS T3 R^noovooofvnnr-oowfsN riooinooR fN|Tj'tl rHr-MrHTrM'tvOrJiniNrilNlNINmiNN'trt (NtNromvOsomTt1 'tooMnnin « >^3 c jr. "3 8 ns m 3 W 01 <*. «£ ° < oO «; H oi "5! k« Ot re is C_ »Co q y in PPCo in ^n CoCoRS'iNin'oo oo 5" int^cn r-^ro nTr? Co O J r£^^r- o -2 1= '■= 3 o A a. sis. Oi o o •0 a-> > ^S S2 rt(Nrtoo ooa; n n rs N ■to>dt\ifinifiri '^r^^rJf^^o^^o'^^fn'oo'i^rH'fN'o'rH'o' rvirvirviinrsiinr^icNrorNirNir'ScNir^fiSrSininin inn innoMnt n (Ntom^n't'tin ^NlflNnO^OMNNniN Ho6^ododih\drvioda^<^roo6odsdininOiNiN'l,(> 0\OCT»i— 'i—r^O^t niKt^i-ii-io»-it^'^<ON Q oooooooooooooo j ooooooooooooo Q vOinr<^NrirHpJ>On(Nh0MH cJoooooooooo S2 « o oooooooooo ddddddddd go 1" 1° En C rM O .-: p Oi J" •■" — 00 . o> CM "O < Oi H > q odocJoodo ^ NNrlOrlH Ji ^ 1— l i— c r-l O O O i— I T d d d d d d d "ill l q NNnnNH » d d d d d d a o o o o d -J oe ins vO v© CM odd EC u fx ri CN fM d d N d J BD D d |J UnuSz S 2 z S E u C s 5 o E 2 rf P 10 FIELDIANA: ZOOLOGY Table 3. Product-moment correlation matrix for "mandibular" characters (within-set correlations). Correlation coefficients are based on 86 cases and have 84 degrees of free- dom. P(r = 0.212) a .05; P (r - 0.277) a .01. MAD CVH CDH AGW ALW ALF WMM MC 0.77 0.54 0.47 0.50 S 0.31 0.49 0.05 MAD 0.52 0.41 0.44 0.28 0.64 0.01 CVH 0.71 0.73 0.40 0.44 0.06 CDH 0.34 0.16 0.45 -0.06 AGW 0.55 0.38 0.18 ALW 0.13 0.29 ALF -0.01 Table 4. Product-moment correlation matrix for "taxonomic" (rows) and "mandibular" (columns) characters (between-set correlations). Correlation coefficients are based on 86 cases and have 84 degrees of freedom. P (r = 0.212) a .05; P {r = 0.277) ■ .01. MC MAD CVH CDH AGW ALW ALF WMM GLS 0.64 0.63 0.56 0.46 0.51 0.20 0.42 -0.00 ZB 0.63 0.62 0.72 0.60 0.62 0.31 0.46 0.07 CB 0.18 0.22 0.22 0.12 0.15 0.22 0.25 0.14 ML 0.75 0.73 0.57 0.50 0.48 0.18 0.55 -0.01 NL 0.27 0.28 0.12 0.07 0.04 -0.08 0.02 -0.15 MTR 0.38 0.32 0.29 0.27 0.36 0.25 0.17 0.35 IOB 0.29 0.28 0.23 0.05 0.14 0.22 0.06 0.22 NW -0.09 -0.05 -0.13 -0.17 -0.12 0.03 -0.16 0.02 DOL 0.47 0.52 0.40 0.36 0.29 0.06 0.36 -0.02 PL 0.24 0.27 0.13 -0.04 0.14 -0.00 0.08 -0.04 CD 0.22 0.18 0.25 0.22 0.10 0.13 0.29 0.12 PTL 0.59 0.51 0.54 0.50 0.51 0.25 0.33 -0.10 MD 0.43 0.40 0.48 0.46 0.45 0.12 0.30 -0.15 LAB 0.34 0.31 0.29 0.26 0.13 0.04 0.09 -0.02 OIL 0.48 0.39 0.42 0.35 0.45 0.23 0.22 -0.12 PW 0.14 0.01 0.11 0.15 -0.03 0.18 0.06 0.10 BOS 0.48 0.36 0.37 0.29 0.19 0.17 0.10 0.03 IL -0.05 -0.01 -0.03 -0.04 0.03 0.22 -0.04 0.28 TZ 0.31 0.32 0.24 0.18 0.30 0.08 0.29 -0.03 FW 0.02 0.12 0.08 -0.04 0.14 0.06 0.04 0.15 imprecision with which these characters were measured with dial calipers; each 0.1-mm increment corresponds to 6.9% of the mean value of WMM vs. only 0.3% of GLS (table 1). The extent of correlations of characters within taxonomic and mandibular sets differs substantially. Seventy-nine of 190 (36.3%) intercorrelations of taxonomic characters (table 2) differ significantly from zero (P < .05), whereas 20 of 28 (71.4%) correlations of mandibular characters (table 3) are significant. The greater proportion of significant correlations among characters of the mandibular set can likely be attributed to the relative structural and functional simplicity of the man- dible in comparison with that of the cranium. The extent of correlation between taxonomic and mandibular data sets (table 4) appears intermediate to correlations within these sets. Eighty-four of 160 between- set correlations (52.5%) are significant (P < .05) vs. 99 of 218 (45.4%) total within- set correlations. The relation of correlations within and between character sets is made evident in the histogram of all 378 correlation coefficients (fig. 3). The median correlation coefficient for within-set correlations is 0.19 (P > .05), whereas S LU o n 0) J ■*-• ^^ <1> rf *-» a> n a CsJ O I 5 — o <2 c S .9 *- C -r si m o< 60 t o o — u