Altitudinal variation in the morphometric characteristics of Aedes vexans Meigen from northeastern Turkey

Abstract

Body size is one of the most significant features of organisms and is correlated with a large number of ecological and physiological variables. Similar to size, biological shape is one of the most conspicuous aspects of an organism's phenotype and provides a link between the genotype and the environment. Body size may change with altitude and also habitat differences associated with altitude may affect the biological shape and some morphological characteristics. Four populations of Aedes vexans Meigen occurring in different ecological subregions at altitudes between 808-1,620 m in the Aras Valley from northeastern Turkey were compared using traditional and geometric morphometrics. When the wing shape differences of populations were analyzed by UPGM, the cluster analyses recognized two main groups of populations. Gödekli (808 m) comprised the first group while Zülfikar (848 m), Sürmeli (944 m), and Cilehane (1,620 m) populations comprised the second group. In the second group, Zülfikar and Cilehane populations showed a similar grouping pattern while Sürmeli appeared as a different group. Centroid sizes were used as measures of overall wing size differences among different regions. Aedes vexans from the Sürmeli region had relatively larger wings. Journal of Vector Ecology 36 (1): 30-41. 2011.

Wing Metric Variation in Aedes aegypti Effect of Altitude on Wing Metric Variation of Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) in a Region of the Colombian Central Andes

“…To our knowledge, this is the first work on an altitudinal gradient in the Andean region identifying differences for wing size and shape of A. aegypti males and females in an altitudinal gradient. This is a pattern previously observed in females from Culex theileri [18] and Aedes vexans [32], West Nile virus and Valley fever vectors, respectively. In C. theileri , it was found that wing size and altitude are correlated positively, while in A. vexans , these differences were observed for wing size and shape through the altitudinal gradient.…”

“…Studies in northeastern Turkey on Aedes vexans between 808 and 1620 m and on Culex theileri between 808 and 2.130 m showed variation in wing size and shape. Besides, in Culex theileri , a positive correlation was observed between wing size and altitude [18, 32]. Recently, in Aedes albopictus of Albania, the region where this Asian mosquito was first registered in Europe, it was observed between 154 and 1559 m shape, size and sex variations among altitudinal populations of these species [33].…”

Altitudinal population structure and microevolution of the malaria vector Anopheles cruzii (Diptera: Culicidae)

“…Studies of Culex [66] and Aedes [67] have demonstrated that altitudinal stratification can be revealed by individual wing morphology; however those studies have compared distant populations, with altitudes ranging from 800 to 2130 m. Our study revealed variation between closely located populations, where the geographical distance between microenvironments was not substantial (see Additional file 1). An incidental hypothesis of our work is that the lowland/hilltop populations are undergoing an incipient speciation process.…”

Geometric morphometrics approach towards discrimination of three member species of Maculatus group in Thailand

“…Both landmark-and outline-based analyses revealed significant differences in wing size among the three species examined. Many factors, such as temperature, humidity, density and food quality or quantity, can affect the size (Jirakanjanakit et al, 2007;Morales-Vargas et al, 2010;Kuclu et al, 2011;Gómez, 2014;Hidalgo et al, 2015), but the between-species size variation is likely to have also an evolutionary significance (Dujardin, 2008). Therefore, its possible contribution to species shape-based separation does not make problem in our study.…”