A diagnostic complex of features used to identify voles Myodes (Rodentia, Circetidae) in their sympatric areas

  • Sergey Gashev ,
  • Fania Betlyaeva ,
  • Natalya Sorokina ,
  • Elena Bykova ,
  • Juri Kurhinen
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  • 1 Department of Zoology and Evolutionary Ecology of Animals, Institute of Biology, Tyumen State University, Tyumen, Russian Federation
    2 Institute of Zoology, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
    3 Mathematical Biology Group, Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinky, Finland
    4 Forest Research Institute, Karelian Research Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences, Petrozavodsk, Russian Federation

Online published: 2020-05-28

Abstract

Currently, no features of Red-backed Voles allow to reduce the ambiguity in the process of species identification. In this regard, the aim of this study is to develop a method for reliable identification of three sympatric species of voles (Myodes rufocanus, M. rutilus and M. glareolus). For this, the following objectives were achieved: 1) identification of features for the diagnosis of species; 2) composition of discrimination equations for each species. The 35 features proposed by various authors were studied to classify three species of red-backed voles, which are sympatric in most of their range. The acquisition of the craniodental measurements showed to be time-consuming and the results were highly variable: 15 features were chose to be excluded in the present analysis. A diagnostic complex of the 20 most conservative (i.e. cranial, odontologic and others) features was used in the analysis. Out of the 20 features, eight were proposed with discriminant equations developed by the program Statistica 10, which made it possible to sort individuals confidently into their respective species.

Cite this article

Sergey Gashev , Fania Betlyaeva , Natalya Sorokina , Elena Bykova , Juri Kurhinen . A diagnostic complex of features used to identify voles Myodes (Rodentia, Circetidae) in their sympatric areas[J]. ACTA THERIOLOGICA SINICA, 2020 , 40(3) : 282 -289 . DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150386

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