Morphometric study of third-instar larvae from five morphotypes of the Anastrepha fraterculus cryptic species complex (Diptera, Tephritidae)

By

Canal, Nelson A.
Hernández-Ortiz, Vicente
Tigrero Salas, Juan Oswaldo
Selivon, Denise

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2015

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

540

Pages

41-59

Subjects

geometric morphometry , immature , linear morphometry , Morphotypes , south american fruit fly , taxonomy

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.540.6012

 

Abstract

The occurrence of cryptic species among economically important fruit flies strongly affects the development of management tactics for these pests. Tools for studying cryptic species not only facilitate evolutionary and systematic studies, but they also provide support for fruit fly management and quarantine activities. Previous studies have shown that the South American fruit fly, Anastrepha fraterculus, is a complex of cryptic species, but few studies have been performed on the morphology of its immature stages. An analysis of mandible shape and linear morphometric variability was applied to third-instar larvae of five morphotypes of the A. fraterculus complex: Mexican, Andean, Ecuadorian, Peruvian and Brazilian-1. Outline geometric morphometry was used to study the mouth hook shape and linear morphometry analysis was performed using 24 linear measurements of the body, cephalopharyngeal skeleton, mouth hook and hypopharyngeal sclerite. Different morphotypes were grouped accurately using canonical discriminant analyses of both the geometric and linear morphometry. The shape of the mandible differed among the morphotypes, and the anterior spiracle length, number of tubules of the anterior spiracle, length and height of the mouth hook and length of the cephalopharyngeal skeleton were the most significant variables in the linear morphometric analysis. Third-instar larvae provide useful characters for studies of cryptic species in the A. fraterculus complex.