Abstract
Geometric morphometrics is an approach widely used in biological research. For bees, wing landmarks are applied to investigate several questions, such as species identification and population dynamics, yet other morphological structures remain understudied. Megalopta Smith reunite species that forage at dim-light conditions having heads with modifications on shape and size associated with specialized compound eyes and ocelli. In this study, we selected both sexes of 14 species to test if head landmarks can successfully differentiate Megalopta sexes, species, and taxonomic groups. We found that head and eye centroid size and Mahalanobis and Procrustes distances were consistently different between males and females. Male and female differed on lower head landmarks. When contrasting both species and taxonomic groups, canonical variate analysis could differentiate species pairs for most comparisons, while principal component and cluster analysis did not recover such taxonomic groups. Species differences were linked to variation in upper eye landmarks. We conclude that head and wing geometric morphometrics have similar potential and constraints, and response subjects should be selected based on underlying biological questions rather than convenience alone.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for PSO PhD scholarship (process 140379/2019-3), RBG research productivity grant (process 307671/2021-6), and Maria Fernanda Cardoso Gonçalves for the English revision.
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This work was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq): Priscila Soares Oliveira PhD scholarship (process 140379/2019–3), Rodrigo Barbosa Gonçalves research productivity grant (process 307671/2021–6).
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Priscila Soares Oliveira: conception and design of the study, material preparation, data collection and analysis, the first draft of the manuscript as well as previous versions, final reading and approval of the manuscript.
Rodrigo Barbosa Gonçalves: supervision, conception and design of the study, reading of previous versions, final reading and approval of the manuscript.
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Oliveira, P.S., Gonçalves, R.B. Head geometric morphometrics as a reliable method to discriminate sexes and species of Megalopta, a nocturnal bee genus (Hymenoptera, Apoidea). Apidologie 54, 44 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-023-01020-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-023-01020-0