Island biogeography predicts skull gigantism and shape variation in meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus) through ecological release and allometry ...

• Main Authors: Schlis-Elias, Mariah, Malaney, Jason
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2021
• Subjects: Insularity; Island Rule; path modeling; FOS Biological sciences; Microtus pennsylvanicus; Pacific; Archipelago; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jdfn2z3cj; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.jdfn2z3cj

Island Rule describes the graded trend of gigantism in small-bodied species to dwarfism in large-bodied species inhabiting islands, but causal explanations remain unresolved. We used geometric morphometrics to quantify cranial morphology of 544 meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus) samples across 11 island and 3 mainland populations from the Outer Lands of New England (Atlantic) and the Alexander Archipelago of Alaska (Pacific). We compared the thermoregulation and endurance (TRE) and ecological release (ER) hypotheses using all-subsets linear models employing residual randomization permutation procedures (rrpp), and Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) for model selection. We decoupled direct and indirect effects of island variables on size using path analysis. We evaluated shape with Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Procrustes ANOVA on Procrustes shape coordinates, then assessed the impact of static allometry and TRE and ER variables on shape. Six Atlantic island populations exhibit significant ... : This data package includes the raw and processed data, in addition to R scripts used to conduct the analyses, obtain results, and generate some figures reported in the following publication: Schlis-Elias, M. C. and Malaney, J. L. 2021. Island biogeography predicts skull gigantism and shape variation in meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus) through ecological release and allometry. ...