Abstract

Accurate species identification is the first step in biological research. The configuration of the pupal gill filaments (e.g., the number of filaments and their branching form) is one of the most basic source of characters used in the discrimination of species in Simuliidae taxonomy. However, the use of these characters is not always sufficient for identification, especially for the separation of cryptic species such as in the Simulium ornatum species-group. In this study, the reliability of pupal gill filaments as a morphotaxonomic character in the identification of four species of the S. ornatum species-group (Simulium ornatum Meigen, 1818; S. intermedium Roubaud, 1906; S. kiritshenkoi Rubtsov, 1940 and S. ornatum sp.) was tested by using geometric morphometric analysis. Geometric morphometry was applied for the first time to the pupal stage of the family Simuliidae. A total of 196 pupae representing the S. ornatum species-group were used. Eighteen landmarks were determined by tpsDIG 2.32 analysis to reflect the length and width measurements of filament common stems for pupae, which are thought to differ among target species. As a result of the geometric morphometric analysis made with the Tps program series Morpheus and NTSYS Programs, the pupal gill filaments were found to be insufficient for distinguishing the evaluated species in this group.

中文翻译：

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蛹鳃丝的几何形态测量可以用作鉴定 Simulium ornatum 物种组（Simuliidae：双翅目）的工具吗？

摘要

准确的物种鉴定是生物学研究的第一步。蛹鳃丝的构造（例如，丝的数量及其分支形式）是蝼蛄科分类学中用于区分物种的最基本的特征来源之一。然而，这些特征的使用并不总是足以进行识别，特别是对于隐秘物种的分离，例如Simulium ornatum物种组中的物种。在本研究中，蛹鳃丝作为形态分类学特征在鉴定S. ornatum物种组的四个物种中的可靠性（Simulium ornatum Meigen，1818；S. intermedium Roubaud，1906；S. kiritshenkoi Rubtsov，1940 和S. .ornatum sp.）通过使用几何形态分析进行测试。几何形态测量学首次应用于蝼蛄科的蛹阶段。总共使用了196 只代表S. ornatum物种组的蛹。tpsDIG 2.32 分析确定了 18 个地标，以反映蛹丝共同茎的长度和宽度测量值，这些测量值被认为在目标物种之间有所不同。根据 Tps 程序系列 Morpheus 和 NTSYS 程序进行的几何形态分析，发现蛹鳃丝不足以区分该组中的评估物种。