Fig 1.
Location of the Rangifer tarandus subspecies in North America.
Origin of the specimens used in the present study (notice that this distribution area partially coincides with the current Rangifer tarandus distribution in North America, which is wider). Map base by Qyd, Wikimedia Commons, CC Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canada-provinces_layout.png.
Table 1.
Sample used in the present study.
Table 2.
Detailed sample.
Table 3.
Acronyms used in the present study.
Fig 2.
Landmarks and semilandmarks location.
Location of anatomical landmarks (red), curve semilandmarks (blue) and surface semilandmarks (green) placed on proximal epiphyses for fore- (left) and hindlimb (right) first phalanges. The definitions of landmarks are given in Tables 4 and 5.
Table 4.
List of anatomical landmarks and semilandmarks (forelimb phalanx).
Table 5.
List of anatomical landmarks and semilandmarks (hindlimb phalanx).
Fig 3.
Boxplots showing the size variation.
Log-transformed centroid size boxplot distribution on forelimb phalanges according to subspecies (R.t. caribou, R.t. granti, R.t. groenlandicus and R.t. pearyi), habitat (mountain, tundra and boreal forest) and mobility type (sedentary, planarly and altitudinal).
Table 6.
Kruskal-Wallis results.
Table 7.
Pairwise comparisons of log-transformed centroid-sizes.
Fig 4.
Boxplots showing the size variation.
Log-transformed centroid size boxplot distribution on hindlimb phalanges according to subspecies (R.t. caribou, R.t. granti, R.t. groenlandicus and R.t. pearyi), habitat (mountain, tundra and boreal forest) and mobility type (sedentary, planarly and altitudinal).
Table 8.
Pairwise comparisons of log-transformed centroid-sizes.
Table 9.
Kruskal-Wallis results on log-transformed centroid size.
Fig 5.
Scatter plots of the two first axes (PC1 and PC2) of principal component analyses performed on the shape data (forelimb phalanx) according to subspecies (R.t. caribou, R.t. granti, R.t. groenlandicus and R.t. pearyi), habitat (mountain, tundra and boreal forest) and mobility type (sedentary, planarly and altitudinal). The result of the same PCA is expressed in two scatterplots (for a better visualization). On the left, the highlighted individuals correspond to R.t. caribou subspecies, and on the right, those of the remaining subspecies.
Fig 6.
Visualization of shape variation.
Shape variation visualized by deforming the mean shape along negative and positive PC1 and PC2 values (magnified by a scale factor of 0.1). Forelimb phalanges.
Table 10.
MANOVA tests´results.
Table 11.
MANOVA pairwise comparisons results.
Table 12.
Canonical Variate Analysis (CVA) results.
Fig 7.
Scatter plots of the two first axes (PC1 and PC2) of principal component analyses performed on the shape data (hindlimb phalanx) according to subspecies (R.t. caribou, R.t. granti, R.t. groenlandicus and R.t. pearyi), habitat (mountain, tundra and boreal forest) and mobility type (sedentary, planarly and altitudinal). The result of the same PCA is expressed in two scatterplots (for a better visualization). On the left, the highlighted individuals correspond to R.t. caribou subspecies, and on the right, those of the remaining subspecies.
Fig 8.
Visualization of shape variation.
Shape variation visualized by deforming the mean shape along negative and positive PC1 and PC2 values (magnified by a scale factor of 0.1). Hindlimb phalanges.
Table 13.
MANOVA pairwise comparisons results.
Fig 9.
Scatter plots of the two first axes (PC1 and PC2) of principal component analyses performed on the shape data for Rangifer tarandus caribou according to habitat (mountain, tundra and boreal forest) and mobility type (sedentary, planarly and altitudinal); (a) Forelimb; (b) hindlimb.
Fig 10.
Visualization of shape variation.
Shape variation visualized by deforming the mean shape along negative and positive PC1 and PC2 values (magnified by a scale factor of 0.1). Forelimb phalanges from R.t. caribou.
Fig 11.
Visualization of shape variation.
Shape variation visualized by deforming the mean shape along negative and positive PC1 and PC2 values (magnified by a scale factor of 0.1). Hindlimb phalanges from R.t. caribou.
Table 14.
MANOVA tests´results.
Table 15.
MANOVA pairwise comparisons results (habitat-forelimb phalanx).
Table 16.
MANOVA pairwise comparisons results (mobility-forelimb phalanx).
Table 17.
MANOVA pairwise comparisons results (habitat-hindlimb phalanx).
Table 18.
MANOVA pairwise comparisons results (mobility-hindlimb phalanx).
Table 19.
MANOVA pairwise comparisons results (considering all the categories).
Fig 12.
Multivariate regression plots.
Multivariate regression plots performed on shape data (regression scores) and log-transformed centroid size (Log-Centroid Size) according to subspecies (R.t. caribou, R.t. granti, R.t. groenlandicus and R.t. pearyi); Forelimb (left) and hindlimb (right) phalanges.