Testing the Island Effect in a Highly Mobile Pollinator: Wing Morphological Divergence in Euglossa mixta from Continental and Insular Panama.

ABSTRACT: Islands provide valuable opportunities to study how isolation affects phenotypic variation. Even though orchid bees are highly mobile, their movement can still be restricted by marine barriers. In this study, we assessed whether insular isolation impacts wing shape in the orchid bee Euglossa mixta across the Coiba archipelago and a nearby mainland site in Western Panama. Our study analyzed 271 individuals using geometric morphometrics, focusing on forewing venation landmarks, and evaluated the variation using multivariate analyses of shape variation and quantifying the shape of Mahalanobis distances. Additionally, we conducted a Mantel test to explore the relationship between geographic distance and morphological divergence. Our findings reveal that wing shape variation in E. mix

SUBMITTER: Anino Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12837944 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature