Geographic variation of Myotis blythii (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) in four caves from the West Zagros Mountains, Iran: a morphometrical approach

Geographic variation of Myotis blythii (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) in four caves from the West Zagros Mountains, Iran: a morphometrical approach

Jafar Vatandoost¹, Alireza Asem²

1. Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Razi University, 67149, Kermanshah, IRAN
2. Protectors of Urmia Lake National Park Society (NGO), Urmia, IRAN

Summary:
Myotis blythii is a one of species of Bat that belong to Family of Vespertionidae and Order of Chiroptera. The first Myotis blythii was found in Iran was reported in Darband (75 km west of Isfahan) by Thomas in 1906. The main objective of this study was to considerate overlapping and morphometrical differentiation between samples of Myotis blythii in four caves from the West Zagros Mountains in Iran. In this study, morphometric considerations on species of Myotis blythii performed that formerly were sampled from four caves of Mahidasht, Karafto, Kilasefid and Ziveh in West Zagros Mts. by bat worker group in Razi University. For consideration of morphometrical differentiation, 30 cranial morphological characters of the Myotis blythii species were measured. One-way ANOVA was used to find out significant difference among means of various cranial characteristics. Principal Components and Discriminant Function Analyses were used in order to classify and grouping populations. Principal Components Analysis shows that samples of three caves Kilasefid, Karafto and Mahidasht were almost clustered in one group and samples of Ziveh cave regard to factor 1 was separated slightly from this group. Based on PCA analysis, factor 1 contains 24.57 % of variation. In the factor 1, characters of LMD, OML and GL have the most effect in classify populations. According to Discriminant Function Analysis the samples of four caves were almost clustered in one group and it was not possible to make any separation among them. Based on DA analysis, function 1 contains 91.3 % of variation. In the function 1, character of LP2-P4 has the most effect in classify populations. Discriminant Function Analysis show 66.1% of original groups was correctly classified among four samples. Therefore, the results of this study show that according to morphological characters, there aren't morphometrical differentiations and variation in populations of Myotis blythii in the West Zagros Mountains.

Fig.1- Myotis blythii

Fig. 2- Classification of the samples in each station by PCA and DA.

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