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.
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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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Appalachian Mountains
d-loop mitochondrial DNA sequence
geographic variation
latitudinal size cline
Otisorex
Species at risk