Morphometric Traits of the Heart in Standard and Mutational Colour Variants of American Mink ( Neovison vison )

Abstract

traits of the heart in standard and mutational colour variants of American mink (Neovison vison). Int. J. Morphol., 37(2):757-765, 2019. SUMMARY:The aim of this study was to estimate the values of morphological traits of myocardium in American minks. The study was conducted on 342 male mink hearts and 416 female mink hearts. Mink coat coloration resulting from mutation or crossbreeding of mutational variants with each other and sex were assumed as a source of variation. Carcass, lung and heart weights, heart height, width, depth and circumference, as well as left and right ventricular wall weights and thickness at two locations were determined. The values of 10 indices characterising the relative size of the heart were estimated. The results showed no normal distribution of the heart traits examined. The greatest average heart weight was characteristic of male mutational colour variant minks (17.40 ± 2.34 g). These hearts were heavier by more than 8 % than those of male standard colour variant minks. The hearts of male mutational colour variant minks were characterised by the greatest left and right ventricle weights (P≤0.01) compared to those of male standard colour variant minks, in which in turn the greatest left and right ventricle wall thickness was larger than that in standard colour variant minks. It was found that a greater difference calculated between mean left ventricle wall thickness and mean right ventricle wall thickness in standard colour variant minks may provide more evidence of its adaptation to a greater effort, referring thus to their evolutionary history than to the occurrence of signs of multistage myocardial hypertrophy.

Disentangling the effects of sex, life history and genetic background in Atlantic salmon: growth, heart and liver under common garden conditions

“…Studies examining the impacts of domestication have typically focused on features such as bone shape [7], behaviour [8] and genetics [9]. Assessment of internal organs in domesticated taxa, including structural heart morphology, has received little attention (but see [10,11]). A higher proportion of studies investigating the impact of domestication on heart morphology have done so in fish [12][13][14].…”

Analysis of body weight in various color varieties of American mink (Neovison vison) and the relationship between female body weight and reproductive performance

“…Not only do the resulting mink varieties differ in the color of the coat and breeding performance, but also in the average body weight and other traits. For example, it has been found that the minks of different color varieties may exhibit different morphological features of the skull [Baranowski et al 2014], may differ in the size of the heart or in the structure and shape of the coronary vessels Żuk 2019, Baranowski andŻuk 2020]. The apparent significant inequalities in the body weight of the mink of different colors result from genetics rather than from the environment, as housing and feeding conditions of the farm are the same [Liu et al 2011, Do andMiar 2020].…”