Geometric morphometric approach to three species of tribe Phyllobiini (Curculionidae: Entiminae) from Turkey

Abstract

Curculionidae is considered to be one of the species-rich families in Coleoptera. The taxonomic position of Phyllobini tribe in the family Curculionidae and the relationships, that is, phylogenetics of genera and the species pertaining to the genera in the tribe are unclear. However, no morphological study involving Phyllobiini has ever been conducted. We aimed to examine the diversity of pronotum and femur shape and interpret the taxonomic complexity of Phyllobiini using Geometric morphometrics. Three species of Phyllobiini (Curculionidae: Entiminae) used in this study are Phyllobius glaucus, Parascythropus mirandus, and Oedecnemidius pictus. Sexual size dimorphism was not significant in both femur and pronotum centroid size, on the other hand Manova results showed that there was sexual dimorphism in both femur and pronotum shape in Phyllobiini thus sexes were evaluated separately. Both canonical variate and principle component analysis were resulted in clear separation of femur and pronotum shape among species. Finally, based on the results obtained and the observed morphological traits, O. pictus, P. mirandus and P. glaucus can be considered a member of separate genus.