Abstract

E. DE POLANCO, MARÍA MAGDALENA et al. Morphometric analysis in species of Drosophila (Diptera: Drosophilidae) of group repleta of semiarid Colombian ecosystems. Rev. Colomb. Entomol. [online]. 2008, vol.34, n.1, pp.105-109. ISSN 0120-0488.

The present work evaluated the aedeagus of males of the species D. martensis, D. starmeri, D. uniseta and D. aldrichi collected in the Colombian localities of Camarones near Riohacha, Santa Marta (North Coast) and Rosalía in the Tatacoa Desert (Huila Department). This character is one of those that has shown the most rapid evolution, favored by natural selection in the processes of new species formation, particularly in insects, and therefore it is considered an adequate indicator to determine the advancement of the aforementioned processes. Morphometric analysis with Fourier elliptical and MANOVA-CVA descriptors showed that among populations of D. martensis (Pl wilk= 0.1816), as well as D. uniseta (Pl wilk = 0.0507), there were no statistical differences in the form of the aedeagus, as opposed to that obtained for D. starmeri (Pl wilk = 0.0004). This same test determined that in the three species of the martensis cluster, the genitalia of the males demonstrated significant differences (Pl wilk = 4.23E-163). These results are evidence that each species in the martensis cluster maintains its taxonomic identity in the analysis. Likewise, when comparing each species of the cluster with D. aldrichi, another species of the replete group collected in Tatacoa and belonging to the mulleri cluster, it was found that the data of D. martensis appeared to be superimposed over those of D. aldrichi, which would show the existence of a closer phylogenetic relation among these two species, than between D. martensis and others of the same cluster.

Keywords : Allopatric speciation; Morphological variability; Geometric morphometrics; Siblings.

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