| Abstract: | The water deer (Hydropotes inermis) has conventionally been classified
into two subspecies according to geographic distribution and pelage color pattern:
H. i. inermis from China and H. i. argyropus from
Korea. However, the results of a recent molecular study have called this into question. To
further reappraise this classification, we examined morphological variation in
craniodental measurements of these 2 subspecies. Results of univariate and multivariate
analyses demonstrated that these 2 subspecies are not well-differentiated, suggesting that
individuals of the 2 populations share common morphological traits. Despite the
distribution of the subspecies at different latitudes, no clear morphocline was detected,
suggesting that Bergmann’s rule does not apply in this case. Discriminant analysis
indicated that the characteristics of individuals are shared by both populations,
suggesting that not all individuals can be assigned to their original population. Results
of principal component analysis showed that the two populations shared more than 75% of
individuals, congruent with the “75% rule” of subspecies classification. In both the
neighbor-joining and unweighted pair group methods with arithmetic mean cluster analyses,
specimens of H. i. argyropus and H. i. inermis were
highly mixed within the cladograms. These results suggest that the overall morphological
variation in the 2 subspecies overlaps considerably and that there is no coherent
craniofacial difference between the 2 groups. The present findings combined with prior
observations from molecular biogeography point out that the taxonomic division of water
deer into 2 subspecies should be revisited. |
