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Effect of isolation on coat colour polymorphism of Polynesian rats in Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific

Populations of vertebrate species introduced onto islands regularly develop similar phenotypic changes, e.g., larger or smaller body size, shortened limbs, duller coats, as well as behavioural changes such as increased tameness and reduced flight-initiation distance. These changes overlap in part wi...

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Autor principal: van der Geer, Alexandra A.E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6511229/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31119086
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6894
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author van der Geer, Alexandra A.E.
author_facet van der Geer, Alexandra A.E.
author_sort van der Geer, Alexandra A.E.
collection PubMed
description Populations of vertebrate species introduced onto islands regularly develop similar phenotypic changes, e.g., larger or smaller body size, shortened limbs, duller coats, as well as behavioural changes such as increased tameness and reduced flight-initiation distance. These changes overlap in part with those associated with the ‘domestication syndrome’, especially tameness and changes in coat patterns, and might indicate a similar neural crest involvement in the concurrent development of multiple phenotypic traits. Here I examine long-term data on free-living populations of wild Polynesian rats from seven mainland countries and 117 islands (n = 3,034), covering the species’ native and introduced range. Mainland populations showed no aberrant coat patterns, with the exception of one albino, whereas aberrant coat patterns were found in 12 island populations. Observed coat colour polymorphisms consisted of leucistic (including singular white patches), melanistic (darkly pigmented) and piebald (mixed) coat patterns. After isolation for at least seven centuries, wild Polynesian rat populations on islands seem to exhibit a trend towards a higher incidence of aberrant coat patterns. These phenotypic changes are here explained as a neutral, non-adaptive process, likely part of the ‘domestication syndrome’ (via the commensal pathway of domestication), in combination with genetic drift, little or no gene flow between the islands and/or the mainland and a relaxed selection (as a result of the weakening or removal of competitor/predator pressure) under commensality.
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spelling pubmed-65112292019-05-22 Effect of isolation on coat colour polymorphism of Polynesian rats in Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific van der Geer, Alexandra A.E. PeerJ Biogeography Populations of vertebrate species introduced onto islands regularly develop similar phenotypic changes, e.g., larger or smaller body size, shortened limbs, duller coats, as well as behavioural changes such as increased tameness and reduced flight-initiation distance. These changes overlap in part with those associated with the ‘domestication syndrome’, especially tameness and changes in coat patterns, and might indicate a similar neural crest involvement in the concurrent development of multiple phenotypic traits. Here I examine long-term data on free-living populations of wild Polynesian rats from seven mainland countries and 117 islands (n = 3,034), covering the species’ native and introduced range. Mainland populations showed no aberrant coat patterns, with the exception of one albino, whereas aberrant coat patterns were found in 12 island populations. Observed coat colour polymorphisms consisted of leucistic (including singular white patches), melanistic (darkly pigmented) and piebald (mixed) coat patterns. After isolation for at least seven centuries, wild Polynesian rat populations on islands seem to exhibit a trend towards a higher incidence of aberrant coat patterns. These phenotypic changes are here explained as a neutral, non-adaptive process, likely part of the ‘domestication syndrome’ (via the commensal pathway of domestication), in combination with genetic drift, little or no gene flow between the islands and/or the mainland and a relaxed selection (as a result of the weakening or removal of competitor/predator pressure) under commensality. PeerJ Inc. 2019-05-08 /pmc/articles/PMC6511229/ /pubmed/31119086 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6894 Text en ©2019 van der Geer http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Biogeography
van der Geer, Alexandra A.E.
Effect of isolation on coat colour polymorphism of Polynesian rats in Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific
title Effect of isolation on coat colour polymorphism of Polynesian rats in Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific
title_full Effect of isolation on coat colour polymorphism of Polynesian rats in Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific
title_fullStr Effect of isolation on coat colour polymorphism of Polynesian rats in Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific
title_full_unstemmed Effect of isolation on coat colour polymorphism of Polynesian rats in Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific
title_short Effect of isolation on coat colour polymorphism of Polynesian rats in Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific
title_sort effect of isolation on coat colour polymorphism of polynesian rats in island southeast asia and the pacific
topic Biogeography
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6511229/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31119086
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6894
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