Modularity and integration in the skull of canis lupus (Linnaeus 1758): a geometric morphometrics study on domestic dogs and wolves ...

• Main Author: Curth, Stefan
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena 2018
• Subjects: Tieranatomie; Tiermorphologie; 590; Canis lupus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.22032/dbt.34909; https://www.db-thueringen.de/receive/dbt_mods_00034909

Domestic dogs stand out due to an enormous morphological variation of their skulls, which clearly surpasses the variation found in wolves. A frequent phenomenon among this variation is the occurrence of disproportions between skull modules which appear much more frequent and more pronounced in domestic dogs than in wolves. This phenomenon led up to the hypothesis that the integration of the skull modules in domestic dogs is degraded when compared to the wolf. Moreover, it was hypothesized that the patterns of covariation of skull modules were altered through artificial selection. In a first study, this hypothesis was tested using geometric morphometrics on 196 CT scanned dog and wolf skulls. The results point to an unchanged integration strength of the skull modules in domestic dogs. Also the covariation pattern of skull modules is very similar to that of wolves. Through this surprising result, the hypothesis for a second study was formed. The temporomandibular joint of dogs is highly diverse when compared ...