MOLECULAR DOCUMENTATION OF POLYEMBRYONY AND THE MICRO-SPATIAL DISPERSION OF CLONAL SIBSHIPS IN THE 9-BANDED ARMADILLO, DASYPUS-NOVEMCINCTUS

A battery of allelic markers at highly polymorphic microsatellite loci was developed and employed to confirm, genetically, the clonal nature of sibships in nine-banded armadillo. This phenomenon of consistent p olyembryony, otherwise nearly unknown among the vertebrates, was capit alized upon to describe the micro-spatial distributions of numerous cl onal sibships in a natural population of armadillos. Adult clone mates were significantly more dispersed than were juvenile sibs, suggesting limited opportunities for altruistic behavioural interactions among m ature individuals. These results, and considerations of armadillo natu ral history, suggest that evolutionary explanations for polyembryony i n this species may not reside in the kinds of ecological and kin selec tion theories relevant to some of the polyembryonic invertebrates. Rat her, polyembryony in armadillos may be associated evolutionarily with other reproductive peculiarities of the species, including delayed ute rine implantation of a single egg.