Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Transactions of the American Entomological Society, cilt.147, sa.4, ss.845-854, 2021 (SCI-Expanded)
© 2021 American Entomological Society. All rights reserved.The insect genitalia work as a perfect taxonomical tool as it is one of the most stable prezygotic isolation powers among species. The details of morphological characters are potentially useful in the recognition and diagnosis of species but sometimes it can be really difficult to find out the details of visible features. Within this context, male genitalia of bumblebees from the Kashmir Himalaya were compared using a model pool of 28 species with 38 taxa from eight subgenera. Three structures that have a function in copulation (penis valve from the postero-dorsal aspect and from the outer lateral aspect, volsella from the interio-ventral aspect, and gonostylus from the dorsal aspect) were inspected and the outline-based geometric morphometric technique of elliptical Fourier analysis were performed. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Canonical Variates Analysis (CVA) were used to explain the diagnostic power of these structures for the taxonomy of bumblebees at the subgeneric rank. It was found that the lateral aspect of the penis valve shows greater diagnostic power than the other genital structures investigated. This approach may help future studies by contributing towards solving problems in taxonomy and semi-automatic taxonomical systems.