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1 April 2012 Morphometric and Genetic Differentiation of Two Sibling Gossamer-Wing Damselflies, Euphaea formosa and E. yayeyamana, and Adaptive Trait Divergence in Subtropical East Asian Islands
Yat-Hung Lee, Chung-Ping Lin
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Abstract

Insular species frequently demonstrate different tendencies to become smaller or larger than their continental relatives. Two sibling gossamer—wing damselflies, Euphaea formosa (Odonata: Euphaeidae) from Taiwan and E. yayeyamana from the Yaeyama Islands of Japan, have no clear structural differentiation, and can only be recognized by their geographical distribution, sizes, and subtle differences in wing shape and coloration. This study combined morphometric and genetic techniques to investigate the adaptive significance of trait divergence and species status in these two Euphaea damselflies. Phylogenetic analyses of the mitochondrial cox2 sequences demonstrated that the two damselflies are monophyletic lineages and constitute valid phylogenetic species. The landmark—based geometric morphometrics indicated that the two damselflies are different morphological species characterized by distinctive wing shapes. The larger E. formosa exhibited broader hind wings, whereas E. yayeyamana had narrower and elongated forewings. The body size and wing shape variations among populations of the two species do not follow the expected pattern of neutral evolution, suggesting that the evolutionary divergence of these two traits is likely to be subjected to natural or sexual selection. The decreased body size, elongated forewings, and narrower hind wings of E. yayeyamana may represent insular adaptation to limited resources and reduced territorial competition on smaller islands.

This is an open access paper. We use the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license that permits unrestricted use, provided that the paper is properly attributed.
Yat-Hung Lee and Chung-Ping Lin "Morphometric and Genetic Differentiation of Two Sibling Gossamer-Wing Damselflies, Euphaea formosa and E. yayeyamana, and Adaptive Trait Divergence in Subtropical East Asian Islands," Journal of Insect Science 12(53), 1-17, (1 April 2012). https://doi.org/10.1673/031.012.5301
Received: 31 May 2011; Accepted: 1 November 2011; Published: 1 April 2012
KEYWORDS
body size
insular adaptation
Ishigaki
lriomote
Taiwan
wing shape
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