UTILIZING MUSEUM SPECIMENS TO ASSESS MORPHOLOGICAL VARIATION ACROSS THE WIDELY DISTRIBUTED GEOGRAPHIC RANGE OF NECTURUS MACULOSUS. 

The common mudpuppy, Necturus maculosus, is a large-bodied, fully aquatic salamander species which inhabits a wide geographic range across the eastern United States and southern Canada. Necturus maculosus has been recorded and understood as a species that possesses morphological variability in gill length and shape between different habitat conditions or flow rates across their range. These displayed differences can often be products of altered ecological conditions by anthropological influences which with time can create variation amongst regional populations and metapopulations. With this understanding a wide-ranging morphological analysis was performed on museum specimens from the American Museum of Natural History to investigate whether variation is regionally dependent across numerous morphological characteristics. The findings supported significant differences between regions in total length, leg length, vent tail length and head width. This finding went against prior studies and common understanding that variation amongst morphology in Necturus maculosus is associated with habitat condition. Suggesting that genetic diversity across the wide geographic range may play a role in morphological characteristics of mudpuppies. 

For more information: geweikert@eckerd.edu

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