Divergence in wing morphology among sibling species of the Drosophila buzzatii cluster

Abstract

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.

Integrated landmark and outline-based morphometric methods efficiently distinguish species of Euglossa (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Euglossini)

“…Morphometric methods have been successfully applied for both taxonomic purposes and to appraise biodiversity (Ruttner 1988;Moraes et al 2004;Schroeder et al, 2006;Bubliy et al 2008;Francoy et al 2009;Francoy et al 2011). Our morphometric analysis indicates marked quantitative divergence in male wing morphology of Euglossa, in both landmark-and outlinebased approaches.…”

“…A main conclusion from those studies is that wing morphology encompasses sufficient quantitative variability to be used as a marker to discriminate operational taxonomic units. Furthermore, wing morphology is an efficient quantitative marker to discriminate other insect species, as for example, the fly genus Drosophila (Moraes et al 2004;Bubliy et al 2008).…”

Molecular characterization of SSS139, a new satellite DNA family in sibling species of the Drosophila buzzatii cluster

“…On the other hand, according to phylogeny based on mitochondrial DNA data the D. serido sibling set is polyphyletic due the phylogenetic position of D. koepferae as a sister group of D. buzzatii in the basal lineage (Manfrin et al, 2001). The pBuM and SSS139 satellite DNA data suggest that D. koepferae could be more closely related to the remaining D. serido sibling set species than to D. buzzatii species, thus supporting morphological (Tidon-Sklorz and Sene 2001; Moraes et al, 2004) and nuclear gene data (Rodriguez-Trelles et al, 2000) and in disagreement with mitochondrial DNA data (Manfrin et al, 2001). In this context, we suggest that the phylogenetic position of D. koepferae must be reconsidered by further studies using more molecular markers.…”

“…Currently, the D. buzzatii cluster is composed of seven nominal Drosophila species (D. antonietae, D. borborema, D. buzzatii, D. gouveai, D. koepferae, D. serido and D. seriema). According to aedeagus and wing morphology, the D. buzzatii cluster can be divided into two species groups (Tidon-Sklorz and Sene, 2001;Moraes et al, 2004). One of them is composed by D. buzzatii populations, and another group, called the D. serido sibling set, is composed by the remaining D. buzzatii cluster species.…”

“…Furthermore, among the species of the cluster, D. buzzatii has a primitive pattern of chromosome inversions (Ruiz and Wasserman, 1993) and is the most reproductively isolated species (Marin et al, 1993;Madi-Ravazzi et al, 1997;Machado et al, 2006). Morphologically, the aedeagus and wing morphometry of this species is different from that of the other species of the cluster (Tidon-Sklorz and Sene 2001; Moraes et al, 2004;Manfrin and Sene, 2006). In this context, it is not surprising that other species in the D. buzzatii cluster share characteristics not found in D. buzzatii.…”