INTERSEXUAL AND INTERPOPULATION VARIABILITY IN THE PELVIS (OS COXAE) OF THE EUROPEAN SOUSLIK, SPERMOPHILUS-CITELLUS

Fifteen linear measurements, scored from 106 adult pelvic girdles of E uropean sousliks from four geographic samples (corresponding to four n ominal subspecies), were subjected to uni- and multivariate analyses i n order to evaluate interlocality and intersexual variation. Two way A NOVA revealed significant interlocality variation for all the traits s tudied, and significant differences between sexes in thirteen characte rs. There was no interaction effect between sexes and localities in an y of the variables. The highest intersexual differences were expressed by characters describing the pubic region. Males attained higher aver age values for all characters, except the breadth at pubic symphysis a nd pelvis height at pubic symphysis. Discriminant Function Analysis of the two sexes in four samples did not result in any simple pattern, i .e. in clusters based exclusively on location or sex. Males attained h igher interlocality squared Mahalonobis distances than females in all pairwise comparisons. The pelvis of the European souslik is subject to geographic variation, as is also the case in all other aspects of the phenotype studied previously.