A Morph or morphotype, meaning "form" (from the Latin morpha), is a zoological term that describes local population or subpopulations of a single species of animal that may or may not be phenotypically distinct from the larger population as a whole. Morphs, whether or not phenotypically distinguishable, are most usually behaviourally distinct from each other.
For example, an anadromous subpopulation of brown trout (Salmo trutta morpha trutta) m...
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A Morph or morphotype, meaning "form" (from the Latin morpha), is a zoological term that describes local population or subpopulations of a single species of animal that may or may not be phenotypically distinct from the larger population as a whole. Morphs, whether or not phenotypically distinguishable, are most usually behaviourally distinct from each other.
For example, an anadromous subpopulation of brown trout (Salmo trutta morpha trutta) may occur sympatrically with a stream-resident subpopulation of brown trout (Salmo trutta morpha fario). The two subpopulations are a single species and may, in fact, interbreed . Nonetheless, the tendency to anadromy or to remaining stream-resident is innate in each of the subpopulations. Frequently, the likelihood of interbreeding is reduced because the morphs also have distinct reproductive behaviours such as variance in timing or in the selection of sites for reproduction.
The segregation of a species into sympatric morphs often can be...
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