Patterns of morphological variability in reintroduced populations with two beaver subspecies Castor fiber orientoeuropaeus and Castor fiber belorussicus (Castoridae, Rodentia) as an example

Abstract

Taking as an example two beaver subspecies (Castor fiber orientoeuropaeus and Castor fiber belorussicus) with documented history of population formation, the patterns of morphological variability in translocated groups of mammals are studied. The variability of quantitative and qualitative traits in the formed populations is not characterized by a single direction. The main trend consists in increasing of adaptive norms diversity as related to body size. There observed a slight increase in the level of fluctuating asymmetry, reduction in polymorphism of nonmetric traits, and increase in fraction of rare aberrations. All these may be caused by inbreeding taking place during the period of prapopulations formation. The results of the study allow for considering the intraspecific differentiation as a consequence of adaptive variability (adaptatiogenesis) or subspecies hybridization. As for stochastic processes (genetic drift, founder effect), they seem to not influence the morphological variability significantly. The differences between discrete and dimensional traits are indicative of population groups' peculiarity.