The Drosophila buzzatii species cluster consists of the sibling species D. buzzatii, D. koepferae, D. serido, D. borborema, D. seriema, D. antonietae and D. gouveai, all of which breed exclusively in decaying cactus tissue and, except for D. buzzatii (a colonizing subcosmopolitan species), are endemic to South America. Using a morphometric approach and multivariate analysis of 17 wing parameters, we investigated the degree of divergence in wing morphology among the sibling species of this cluster. Significant differences were obtained among the species and discriminant analysis showed that wing morphology was sufficiently different to allow the correct classification of 98.6% of the 70 individuals analysed. The phenetic relationships among the species inferred from UPGMA cluster analysis based on squared Mahalanobis distances (D 2 ) were generally compatible with previously published phylogenetic relationships. These results suggest that wing morphology within D. buzzatii cluster is of phylogenetic importance.
-Morphometry is a very powerful, though often laborious and time-consuming, tool for the identification of bee species and subspecies. In an attempt to develop a simplified methodology for such work, we marked five easily identified landmarks of digitalized images of the right forewing radial cell in 50 workers of each of three different racial groups of Apis mellifera. Software was developed to calculate angles between the landmarks, cell area, continuous curvature, and arc lengths (total of 11 characters). Based on multivariate analysis, significant differences were detected between commercial USA Italian bees, German Carniolan bees and Africanized honey bees (a polyhybrid that is predominantly Apis mellifera scutellata). A single wing cell carried enough information to discriminate nearly 99% of the individuals. Most of the classifications gave P > 0.99, and only three Africanized bees were misclassified. We concluded that the features measured in a single wing cell are sufficient to discriminate these racial groups.Apis mellifera ligustica / Apis mellifera carnica / Africanized honey bee / morphometry / multivariate statistics / subspecific taxonomy
Drosophila serido and D. antonietae are sibling species belonging to the Drosophila buzzatii cluster. Morphologically, they can only be discriminated by quantitative traits. In this paper we analyze the length and equalized average curvature of four regions of the aedeagus of D. antonietae and D. serido. Specimens of D. serido and D. antonietae were classified correctly 96.74% of the time. Based only on the variable that most contributed to the discrimination of the groups (equalized average curvature of the arch IV of the aedeagus), we observed significant intraspecific morphological divergence in D. serido in relation to the D. antonietae, in agreement with other markers. The high morphological divergence in equalized average curvature of the arch IV of the aedeagus shows that this region evolved faster than others, since the divergence of the two species. The importance of the present study to the understanding of the genetic basis that controls the formation of the aedeagus, in the species of the Drosophila buzzatii cluster, is discussed.
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