Assessment of morphometric characters to delimit species of Apolpium Chamberlin, 1930 (Pseudoscorpiones,Olpiidae) |
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Authors: | Catalina Romero-Ortiz Eduardo Flórez D Carlos E Sarmiento |
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Institution: | 1. Laboratorio de Sistemática y Biología Comparada de Insectos, Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia , Bogotá, Colombia;2. Laboratorio de Aracnología y Miriapodología, Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia , Bogotá, Colombia icromeroo@unal.edu.cohttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-8939-7814;4. Laboratorio de Aracnología y Miriapodología, Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia , Bogotá, Colombia;5. Laboratorio de Sistemática y Biología Comparada de Insectos, Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia , Bogotá, Colombia https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4012-8108 |
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Abstract: | ABSTRACT Pseudoscorpiones is a mesodiverse order of Arachnida, with more than 3600 described species in the world. Species delimitation is sometimes difficult due to the high variability of some characters, difficulty in finding informative and useful characters for species differentiation and the subjectivity of individual specialists. The aim of this work is to explore and to evaluate the role of morphometric characters in species delimitation within the genus Apolpium (Olpiidae). Measurements of 17 structures of 57 individuals were taken and their length/width ratios calculated. Cluster analyses, principal components analyses, discriminant function analyses and non-metric multidimensional scaling were carried out. The results showed low resolution for the number of species currently recognised in the genus. These results highlight the importance of looking for other morphological characters, and also for a more rigorous assessment of previously used characters for defining species. |
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Keywords: | Body ratios Hesperolpiidae morphometrics multivariate analysis species delimitation taxonomy |
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