L. Forró szerk.: Miscellanea Zoologica Hungarica 7. 1992 (Budapest, 1992)

Borroto Páez, R., Camacho Pérez, A.; Ramos García, I.: Variation in three populations of Capromys pilorides (Rodentia: Capromyidae), and the description of a new subspecies from the south of the Isle of Youth (Cuba)

In both methods of clustering the southern form is separate from C. p. relictus, the northern subspecies. Differences in the results are probably due to dissimilarity in the weight of genetic factors between the kinds of characters used for each method. Pelage Differences in the pattern of coat colour between the two Isle of Youth populations were also observed. The southern form tends to have an agouti coloration of the whole body. Berovides & Smith (1982) indicated that the colour pattern in this population is caused by the presence of agouti and black hair, and the total absence of white hair. In comparison, the colour pattern of C. p. relictus is of a lighter shade of agouti, with a grayish tone due to the presence of white hair, mainly on the head. Hernandez et al. (1987) also referred to coat colour differences between these two populations. Biochemical characters In Table 4 the gene frequencies of the 5 polymorphic loci out of 15 studied are shown. There is a high similarity between the southern and northern populations of the Isle of Youth. This is especially noticeable for locus PGI. Both Isle of Youth populations have similar frequencies, which not only separate them from C. p. pilorides from Ciénaga de Zapata, but also from other populations from the island of Cuba where the C allele of this locus is practically fixed (Camacho & Borroto 1989). This peculiarity of the PGI locus may be interpreted in terms of one population having originated from the other, or gene exchange between these populations. Table 4. Gene frequencies of five polymorphic systems in three populations of Capromys pilorides C. p. pilorides C. p. relictus southern form Locus Allele n = 30 n=18 n = 50 PGI C 1 0.667 0.554 1) 0 0.333 0.446 PGM A 0.130 0 0 B 0.870 1 1 C 0 0 0 6-PGD A 0.614 0.929 0.895 B 0 0 0 C 0.386 0.071 0.105 SDH A 0.130 0.417 0.184 B 0.870 0.472 0.750 C 0 0.111 0.066 GOT-II A 0 0 0 B 0.413 0.639 0.557 C 0.587 0.361 0.443 Genetic similitaries between these two populations are also evident when the similarity and genetic distance values are calculated (Table 5). Fig. 3 shows the dendrogram obtained from the genetic distance matrix, which does not sustain a separation of the Isle of Youth populations on the basis of biochemical characters alone. However, Avise (1975) indicated that allozymes are adequate for discriminating subspecies only when very marked degree of genetic divergence is present.