Systematics of Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) : subspecies recognition based on concordance of genetics and morphometrics

Related Titles

Series: Occasional papers / Museum of Texas Tech University, no. 283

By

Phillips, Caleb D.,

Type

Book

Material

Published material

Publication info

Lubbock, TX, Natural Science Research Laboratory, Museum of Texas Tech University, [2009]

Notes

Caption title.

"4 March 2009."

Previous studies have revealed discontinuities in the distribution of genetic markers that led to the recognition of eastern, western, and Asian stocks of Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus). The most profound break separates the eastern and western stocks and is based upon both nuclear and mitochondrial genetic markers. Here, a morphometric analysis of skulls was used to re-evaluate geographic variation in light of the genetics data and to possibly identify characters to distinguish between the eastern and western stocks. For males, three variables were used in stock assignment to correctly identify 88.13% and 86.59% of individuals from the eastern and western stocks, respectively. Through the same method the correct identification in stock assignment using five selected variables for female eastern and western stock individuals was 86.27% and 88.1%, respectively. Furthermore, plots from canonical discriminant analyses clearly separate individuals into stocks with very minimal overlap. Based on the observed morphological differences between these genetically differentiated stocks, we recognize two subspecies of E. jubatus; one includes the Asian and western stocks, and the other the eastern stock. The vernacular name Loughlin's northern sea lion is used to signalize the eastern subspecies.

Subjects

Classification , Genetics , Morphology , Steller's sea lion

Call Number

QL1 .O213 No. 283

Language

English

Identifiers

OCLC: 370447646
Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q109808863