Arriagada José I, Benítez Hugo A, Toro Frederick, Suazo Manuel J, Abarca Paulette, Canto Jhoann, Vilina Yerko A, Cruz-Jofré Franco
Escuela de Medicina Veterinaria, Facultad de Recursos Naturales y Medicina Veterinaria, Universidad Santo Tomás, Chile, Limonares 190, Viña del Mar 2561780, Chile.
Laboratorio de Ecología y Morfometría Evolutiva, Centro de Investigación de Estudios Avanzados del Maule, Universidad Católica del Maule, Talca 3466706, Chile.
Animals (Basel). 2022 May 4;12(9):1179. doi: 10.3390/ani12091179.
Island ecosystems differ in several elements from mainland ecosystems and may induce variations related to natural selection and patterns of adaptation in most aspects of the biology of an organism. (Waterhouse, 1839) is a marsupial endemic to Chile, distributed from Loa River to Concepción. Historically, three subspecies have been described: , and . For this research, two morphometric approaches and a biomechanical model were used to compare the mandible shapes and biomechanics between two Chilean mouse opossum populations belonging to different subspecies: one from the coastal desert of Chile () and the other from the central inland region (). Additionally, mandibles of insular populations found in the Reserva Nacional Pinguino de Humboldt (RNPH)), from which the subspecies association is unknown, were also included. The results showed that insular populations have differences in mandibular shapes, sizes and biomechanical characteristics compared to continental populations, which may be related to environmental variables like aridity and vegetation cover, prey type, insularity effects and/or the founder effect on micromammals, apart from vicariance hypotheses and other selective pressures.
岛屿生态系统在几个方面与大陆生态系统不同，并且可能在生物体生物学的大多数方面引发与自然选择和适应模式相关的变异。（沃特豪斯，1839年）是一种智利特有的有袋动物，分布于洛阿河至康塞普西翁。历史上，已描述了三个亚种： 、 和 。在本研究中，使用了两种形态测量方法和一个生物力学模型，来比较属于不同亚种的两个智利鼠负鼠种群之间的下颌骨形状和生物力学：一个来自智利沿海沙漠（ ），另一个来自中部内陆地区（ ）。此外，还纳入了在洪堡企鹅国家保护区（RNPH）发现的岛屿种群的下颌骨，其亚种关联未知。结果表明，与大陆种群相比，岛屿种群在下颌骨形状、大小和生物力学特征方面存在差异，这可能与干旱、植被覆盖、猎物类型、岛屿效应和/或对小型哺乳动物的奠基者效应等环境变量有关，此外还涉及地理隔离假说和其他选择压力。
