Demirbaş, YasinKoca, Ayça ÖzkanStefanovic, MilomirSmith, SteveSuchentrunk, Franz2024-07-122024-07-122023Demirbaş, Y., Koca, A.Ö., Stefanovic, M., Smith, S. and Suchentrunk, F. (2023). Disentangling population genetic and climatic effects on skull size and shape of brown hares, Lepus europaeus (Lagomorpha: Leporidae), from Türkiye. Zoologischer Anzeiger, 307, p.18-27.10.1016/j.jcz.2023.08.0032-s2.0-85169837552https://doi.prg/10.1016/j.jcz.2023.08.003https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12415/1220Brown hares (Lepus europaeus) from Türkiye exhibit substantial phenotypic variation, assumingly connected to regional climate differences. We used general linear models (GLMs) of linear measurements and geometric morphometric data of dorsal and ventral skull and lateral mandible landmarks of 160 adult individuals from 75 locations across Türkiye, to specifically test for climate-related effects on skull size and shape, while accounting for potentially confounding effects of sex, geographic location, and population genetic assignment. We found a moderate positive correlation between individual condylobasal lengths (CBL) and centroid size scores (CSS) and used them separately as dependent skull size variables in our GLMs. Skull shape factors were obtained from principal component analyses (PCAs), separately for transformed linear morphometric and landmark data; they were also used as dependent variables in our GLMs, along with sex, geographic sampling coordinates, CBL or CSS, as well as temperature and precipitation factors from PCAs of local climate data as fixed factors. Our multivariate GLMs returned no climate effect on skull size and only one minor precipitation effect on geometric skull shape. Rather, skull size and shape were predominantly and significantly affected by the assignment of the hares to the genetic populations as determined by an earlier microsatellite study. Our results correspond to microphylogeographic differentiation of skull size and shape of the studied hares, largely indepedent of specific adaptation to local or regional climate.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessBioclimatic variablesLinear morphometricsGeometric morphometricsHaresStatistical modellingArticle2718307WOS:001073956500001N/A