Morfometria geométrica das espécies de Tetragona Lepeletier & Serville, 1828 (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponini)

Abstract

Tetragona Lepeletier & Serville, 1828 (Hymenoptera: Apidae) is a genus of stingless bees and has 15 species distributed in the Neotropics, from Mexico to Uruguay, widely distributed in Brazil, with nine species. However, Tetragona elongata (Lepeletier & Serville, 1828), a species known from the Southeast region, had been synonymized under Tetragona clavipes (Fabricius, 1804) but was revalidated without any excuse. The purpose of this study was to test if the morphometrics analysis of the wings is efficient in diagnosing species of this genus and also to test the separation or junction between T. elongata and T. clavipes. To this end, the variation in venation of the right forewing was studied using geometric morphometry in 1001 workers from five Brazilian collections: Coleção de Invertebrados do Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA, Manaus, Amazonas), Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi (MPEG, Belém, Pará), Coleção Entomológica Paulo Nogueira-Neto (CEPANN-IB/USP, São Paulo, São Paulo), Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP-USP, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo), Coleção Prof. J.M.F. Camargo, Faculdade De Filosofia, Ciências e Letras De Ribeirão Preto (RPSP-USP, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo), and Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UVF, Viçosa, Minas Gerais). To the geometric morphometry analysis, were selected 12 landmarks. To do Discriminant Function analysis (1000 replications) and Canonical Variation Analysis (CVA), the software MorphoJ version 1.6 has been used. Was used groups of species and their respective species that occur throughout Brazil to realize the study. Groups of species and their species used were: Ptilotrigona lurida (n=38), T. gr. dorsalis [T. beebei (n=49), T. dorsalis (n=25), T. ziegleri (n=5)], T. gr. clavipes [T. clavipes (n=222), T. elongata (n=414), T. perangulata (n=3), T. quadrangula (n=28)], T. gr. essequiboensis [T. essequiboensis (n=24)], T. gr. goettei [T. goettei (n=94)], T. gr. handlirschii [T. handlirschii (n=32)], T. gr. kaieteurensis [T. kaieteurensis (n=53)] e T. gr. truncata [T. truncata (n=14)]. Between T. clavipes and T. elongata, there was a 100% variance between species (canonical variation analysis), suggesting that it may be an indication of speciation. Even though T. elongata was revalidated, it still overlapped with T. clavipes, which indicates they are the same species. Taxonomic studies are needed to synonymize them. To dorsalis group, there was a 100% separation between the species. There was also a separation of goettei and essequiboensis groups. However, it had an overlap between T. kaieteurensis, T. truncata, and T. handlirschii, which do not support the groups previously proposed. It happens because of taxonomic relations uncertainty of species from some groups, or, the small number of samples, considering that to some species used, the number was low compared to others.