Comparative analysis of morphological and behavioral characters in the domestic dog and their importance in the reconstruction of phylogenetic relationships in canids

Relationships among 25 dog breeds, classified a priori by their respective ancestral trunks, were studied using data from 29 morphological and 13 beha vioral characteristics. Although a certain correlation was found between bo th types of traits (r = 0.13; P < 0.05), this relationship was not manifest ed, regarding the level of racial classification, in the obtained dendrogra ms. The relationships between breeds obtained from morphological data were more congruent than those obtained from behavioral data when compared with phylogenies from other sources of information (mainly electrophoretic analy sis). This indicates that the morphological characters could give more and better complementary information than the behavioral ones in the reconstruc tion of the phylogenetic relationships of canids. The mean character differ ence (MCD), used as a measure of taxonomic resemblance between breeds, had a value of 0.53 (+/- 0.12 STD), and was of a magnitude very similar to that obtained in other domestic animal species (cattle, horse, sheep and goats) , indicating that a similar degree of morphological differences between bre eds of these species exists.