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1 April 2004 TAXONOMIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOREX DISPAR AND S. GASPENSIS: INFERENCES FROM MITOCHONDRIAL DNA SEQUENCES
Judith M. Rhymer, Jessica M. Barbay, Heather L. Givens
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Abstract

The long-tailed shrew (Sorex dispar) occurs at upper elevations on wooded slopes in the Appalachian Mountains from North Carolina to Quebec. Size in long-tailed shrews is clinal, decreasing from south to north. A closely related species is the slightly smaller Gaspé shrew (Sorex gaspensis), known primarily from the Appalachians farther north in the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec. Long-tailed shrews captured in northern Maine appear to fit within the size range of the Gaspé shrew which brings up the question: are these specimens small bodied long-tailed shrews at the northern end of their range, Gaspé shrews at the southern edge of their range, or are the 2 species part of the same continuous distribution and, in fact, conspecific? A morphological comparison with other studies indicates that a continuous cline cannot be ruled out. Phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA d-loop sequences showed that S. gaspensis and S. dispar cluster with no taxonomic or geographic structure, suggesting that they are conspecific.

Judith M. Rhymer, Jessica M. Barbay, and Heather L. Givens "TAXONOMIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOREX DISPAR AND S. GASPENSIS: INFERENCES FROM MITOCHONDRIAL DNA SEQUENCES," Journal of Mammalogy 85(2), 331-337, (1 April 2004). https://doi.org/10.1644/BER-003
Accepted: 1 March 2003; Published: 1 April 2004
KEYWORDS
Appalachian Mountains
d-loop mitochondrial DNA sequence
geographic variation
latitudinal size cline
Otisorex
Species at risk
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