MULTIVARIATE MORPHOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF EUROPEAN SPECIES OF THE GENUS MUS (MAMMALIA, MURIDAE)

Systematic relationships among 12 population groups of five European s pecies of house mice were stu died using multivariate morphometric met hods Multiple group principal component analysis (MGPCA) was used to a ssess the contribution of the size component to the total variation. I t was shown that part of the 'shape' information mar be resident in th e first principal component and, likewise, subsequent components may c ontain residual 'size' information. Hence, removing the 'size-vector' should be done with caution and after an appropriate examination of th e data. Canonical variate analysis (CVA) revealed similar results both on 'size-in' and 'size-out' MGPCA scores, The first canonical variate discriminated between the aboriginal and commensal mice lineages, whi le the second axis identified species clusters. The third canonical va riate separated groups of populations within commensal species. Both C VA and cluster analysis demonstrated that (i) M. macedonicus and M. sp retus are morphologically more similar to each other than either speci es is to M. spicilegus: (ii) the distance between M. musculus and M. d omesticus is similar to distances among aboriginal (= outdoor) species , (iii) interpopulation distance is relatively high compared to inters pecific relationships.