Patterns of morphological variation in the Schlegel’s Japanese gecko (Gekko japonicus) across populations in China, Japan, and Korea

Dae-in KIM; Il-kook PARK; Hidetoshi OTA; Jonathan J. FONG; Jong-sun KIM; Yong-pu ZHANG; Shu-ran LI; Woo-jin CHOI; Daesik PARK

doi:10.1186/s41610-019-0132-5

Patterns of morphological variation in the Schlegel’s Japanese gecko (Gekko japonicus) across populations in China, Japan, and Korea

Dae-in KIM, Il-kook PARK, Hidetoshi OTA, Jonathan J. FONG, Jong-sun KIM, Yong-pu ZHANG, Shu-ran LI, Woo-jin CHOI, Daesik PARK^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Science Unit

Research output: Journal Publications › Journal Article (refereed) › peer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background
Studies of morphological variation within and among populations provide an opportunity to understand local adaptation and potential patterns of gene flow. To study the evolutionary divergence patterns of Schlegel’s Japanese gecko (Gekko japonicus) across its distribution, we analyzed data for 15 morphological characters of 324 individuals across 11 populations (2 in China, 4 in Japan, and 5 in Korea).

Results
Among-population morphological variation was smaller than within-population variation, which was primarily explained by variation in axilla-groin length, number of infralabials, number of scansors on toe IV, and head-related variables such as head height and width. The population discrimination power was 32.4% and in cluster analysis, populations from the three countries tended to intermix in two major groups.

Conclusion
Our results indicate that morphological differentiation among the studied populations is scarce, suggesting short history for some populations after their establishment, frequent migration of individuals among the populations, and/or local morphological differentiation in similar urban habitats. Nevertheless, we detected interesting phenetic patterns that may predict consistent linkage of particular populations that are independent of national borders. Additional sampling across the range and inclusion of genetic data could give further clue for the historical relationship among Chinese, Japanese, and Korean populations of G. japonicus.

Original language	English
Article number	34
Journal	Journal of Ecology and Environment
Volume	43
Issue number	1
Early online date	17 Oct 2019
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1186/s41610-019-0132-5
Publication status	Published - 1 Dec 2019

Bibliographical note

We thank Drs. Robert R. Kaplan and Yeon-Sook Jeong for their comments on the manuscript and helps in early statistical analysis and Dr. Il-Hun Kim and Hwan-Jin Jang for their help in field surveys.

Ethics approval and consent to participate
This research was conducted within the guidelines and approval of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Kangwon National University (KW-161128-2).

Contributions
DIK, IKP, and DP designed the study, carried out the field study, performed the analysis, and wrote the manuscript. HO, JSK, YPZ, SRL, and WJC carried out the field study and reviewed the manuscript. JJF conceived the study and reviewed/edited the manuscript. DIK and IKP made equal contributions to this study. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (2016R1D1A1B03931085) to D Park and Natural Sciences Foundation of China (31170376) to YP Zhang.

Keywords

Lizard
Morphological variation
Multivariate analysis
Schlegel's Japanese gecko

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10.1186/s41610-019-0132-5

Cite this

@article{8b87ad3e9c8a4e99be71e31d23d32148,

title = "Patterns of morphological variation in the Schlegel{\textquoteright}s Japanese gecko (Gekko japonicus) across populations in China, Japan, and Korea",

abstract = "BackgroundStudies of morphological variation within and among populations provide an opportunity to understand local adaptation and potential patterns of gene flow. To study the evolutionary divergence patterns of Schlegel{\textquoteright}s Japanese gecko (Gekko japonicus) across its distribution, we analyzed data for 15 morphological characters of 324 individuals across 11 populations (2 in China, 4 in Japan, and 5 in Korea).ResultsAmong-population morphological variation was smaller than within-population variation, which was primarily explained by variation in axilla-groin length, number of infralabials, number of scansors on toe IV, and head-related variables such as head height and width. The population discrimination power was 32.4% and in cluster analysis, populations from the three countries tended to intermix in two major groups.ConclusionOur results indicate that morphological differentiation among the studied populations is scarce, suggesting short history for some populations after their establishment, frequent migration of individuals among the populations, and/or local morphological differentiation in similar urban habitats. Nevertheless, we detected interesting phenetic patterns that may predict consistent linkage of particular populations that are independent of national borders. Additional sampling across the range and inclusion of genetic data could give further clue for the historical relationship among Chinese, Japanese, and Korean populations of G. japonicus.",

keywords = "Lizard, Morphological variation, Multivariate analysis, Schlegel's Japanese gecko",

author = "Dae-in KIM and Il-kook PARK and Hidetoshi OTA and FONG, {Jonathan J.} and Jong-sun KIM and Yong-pu ZHANG and Shu-ran LI and Woo-jin CHOI and Daesik PARK",

note = "We thank Drs. Robert R. Kaplan and Yeon-Sook Jeong for their comments on the manuscript and helps in early statistical analysis and Dr. Il-Hun Kim and Hwan-Jin Jang for their help in field surveys. Ethics approval and consent to participate This research was conducted within the guidelines and approval of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Kangwon National University (KW-161128-2). Contributions DIK, IKP, and DP designed the study, carried out the field study, performed the analysis, and wrote the manuscript. HO, JSK, YPZ, SRL, and WJC carried out the field study and reviewed the manuscript. JJF conceived the study and reviewed/edited the manuscript. DIK and IKP made equal contributions to this study. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.",

year = "2019",

month = dec,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1186/s41610-019-0132-5",

language = "English",

volume = "43",

journal = "Journal of Ecology and Environment",

issn = "2287-8327",

publisher = "Ecological Society of Korea",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Patterns of morphological variation in the Schlegel’s Japanese gecko (Gekko japonicus) across populations in China, Japan, and Korea

AU - KIM, Dae-in

AU - PARK, Il-kook

AU - OTA, Hidetoshi

AU - FONG, Jonathan J.

AU - KIM, Jong-sun

AU - ZHANG, Yong-pu

AU - LI, Shu-ran

AU - CHOI, Woo-jin

AU - PARK, Daesik

N1 - We thank Drs. Robert R. Kaplan and Yeon-Sook Jeong for their comments on the manuscript and helps in early statistical analysis and Dr. Il-Hun Kim and Hwan-Jin Jang for their help in field surveys. Ethics approval and consent to participate This research was conducted within the guidelines and approval of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Kangwon National University (KW-161128-2). Contributions DIK, IKP, and DP designed the study, carried out the field study, performed the analysis, and wrote the manuscript. HO, JSK, YPZ, SRL, and WJC carried out the field study and reviewed the manuscript. JJF conceived the study and reviewed/edited the manuscript. DIK and IKP made equal contributions to this study. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

PY - 2019/12/1

Y1 - 2019/12/1

N2 - BackgroundStudies of morphological variation within and among populations provide an opportunity to understand local adaptation and potential patterns of gene flow. To study the evolutionary divergence patterns of Schlegel’s Japanese gecko (Gekko japonicus) across its distribution, we analyzed data for 15 morphological characters of 324 individuals across 11 populations (2 in China, 4 in Japan, and 5 in Korea).ResultsAmong-population morphological variation was smaller than within-population variation, which was primarily explained by variation in axilla-groin length, number of infralabials, number of scansors on toe IV, and head-related variables such as head height and width. The population discrimination power was 32.4% and in cluster analysis, populations from the three countries tended to intermix in two major groups.ConclusionOur results indicate that morphological differentiation among the studied populations is scarce, suggesting short history for some populations after their establishment, frequent migration of individuals among the populations, and/or local morphological differentiation in similar urban habitats. Nevertheless, we detected interesting phenetic patterns that may predict consistent linkage of particular populations that are independent of national borders. Additional sampling across the range and inclusion of genetic data could give further clue for the historical relationship among Chinese, Japanese, and Korean populations of G. japonicus.

AB - BackgroundStudies of morphological variation within and among populations provide an opportunity to understand local adaptation and potential patterns of gene flow. To study the evolutionary divergence patterns of Schlegel’s Japanese gecko (Gekko japonicus) across its distribution, we analyzed data for 15 morphological characters of 324 individuals across 11 populations (2 in China, 4 in Japan, and 5 in Korea).ResultsAmong-population morphological variation was smaller than within-population variation, which was primarily explained by variation in axilla-groin length, number of infralabials, number of scansors on toe IV, and head-related variables such as head height and width. The population discrimination power was 32.4% and in cluster analysis, populations from the three countries tended to intermix in two major groups.ConclusionOur results indicate that morphological differentiation among the studied populations is scarce, suggesting short history for some populations after their establishment, frequent migration of individuals among the populations, and/or local morphological differentiation in similar urban habitats. Nevertheless, we detected interesting phenetic patterns that may predict consistent linkage of particular populations that are independent of national borders. Additional sampling across the range and inclusion of genetic data could give further clue for the historical relationship among Chinese, Japanese, and Korean populations of G. japonicus.

KW - Lizard

KW - Morphological variation

KW - Multivariate analysis

KW - Schlegel's Japanese gecko

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074077404&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1186/s41610-019-0132-5

DO - 10.1186/s41610-019-0132-5

M3 - Journal Article (refereed)

SN - 2287-8327

VL - 43

JO - Journal of Ecology and Environment

JF - Journal of Ecology and Environment

IS - 1

M1 - 34

ER -

Patterns of morphological variation in the Schlegel’s Japanese gecko (Gekko japonicus) across populations in China, Japan, and Korea

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

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