Analysis of Geographic Variation in Four Populations of Acanthodactylus blanfordi Boulenger, 1918 (Sauria: Lacertidae) from Southern and Southeastern Iran

Nasrullah Rastegar-Pouyani, Nastaran Heydari, Hiwa Faizi

Abstract


In this paper an analysis of geographic variation was carried out in 68 specimens of Acanthodactylus blanfordi belonging to four populations from southern and southeastern Iran using ten metric and seven meristic characters. Inter-population differences in some characters were analyzed by Post-hoc ANOVA pair-wise (LSD-Test), ANCOVA as well as multivariate analyses including Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA) across all the studied groups. Separate analyses for males and females individuals across all four populations revealed significant differences in tail length for males and females in all populations. Results of ANCOVA show significant differences among populations in head length, head width and length of arm for females and length of leg and eye-ear distance for males. Results of multivariate analyses show little differences and separation among the four studied populations.


Keywords


Gando protected area; discriminant function analysis; variation; distribution

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.30906/1026-2296-2011-18-3-228-234

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