Morphological divergence of the Fat dormouse along the Hyrcanian forests of Northern Iran, indicate about the presence of micro-refugium during LGM

Quaternary climatic fluctuations had remained phylogeographical footprints on some organisms. Relocation of northern populations of many species to the southern parts during ice ages, followed by subsequent northward expansions from refugia during interglacial periods had been resulted in intraspecific morphological and molecular divergence. This model has been used Fat Dormouse was used as a model species for investigation about such events that happened in the Hyrcanian Refugium. By photographing of lower mandibles we would able to compare morphological differences between populations distributed along the Hyrcanian forests. We compared our results with previous molecular findings. However the role of remnant Hyrcanian forests as a refugium has been confirmed by some investigations but longterm survival and isolation of some species in this refugium from eastern and northern parts of Palearctic region trigged inter population’s evolutionary divergence. By investigation about these evolutionary diverged traits, some micro refugiums can be defined along the Hyrcanian refugia. In this study, we found some preliminary documents about the presence of eastern micro refugia based on morphological divergence of Glis glis as a model species.