RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Quantitative genetics and modularity in cranial and mandibular morphology of Calomys expulsus JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 008151 DO 10.1101/008151 A1 Guilherme Garcia A1 Rui Cerqueira A1 Erika Hingst-Zaher A1 Gabriel Marroig YR 2014 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2014/08/19/008151.abstract AB Patterns of genetic covariance between characters (represented by the covariance matrix G) play an important role in morphological evolution, since they interact with the evolutionary forces acting over populations. They are also expected to influence the patterns expressed in their phenotypic counterparts (P), because of limits imposed by multiple developmental and functional restrictions on the genotype/phenotype map. We have investigated genetic covariances in the skull and mandible of the vesper mouse (Calomys expulsus) in order to estimate the degree of similarity between genetic and phenotypic covariances and its potential roots on developmental and functional factors shaping those integration patterns. We use a classic ad hoc analysis of morphological integration based on current state of art of developmental/functional factors during mammalian ontogeny and also applied a novel methodology that makes use of simulated evolutionary responses. We have obtained P and G that are strongly similar, for both skull and mandible; their similarity is achieved through the spatial and temporal organization of developmental and functional interactions, which are consistently recognized as hypothesis of trait associations in both matrices.