Geometric morphometric analysis of the pronotum and elytron in stag beetles: insight into its diversity and evolution.

ABSTRACT: Stag beetles (Coleoptera, Scarabaeoidea, Lucanidae) have received extensive attention from researchers in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology. There have been no previous quantitative analyses, particularly using a geometric morphometric approach based on a large sample of data, to shed light on the morphological diversity and evolution of Lucanidae. Thoracic adaptation and ecological differentiation are intimately related, and the pronotum bears important muscles and supports the locomotion of prothoracic legs. The elytron is an autapomorphy of the Coleoptera. To reconstruct and visualize the patterns of evolutionary diversification and phylogenetic history of shape change, an ancestral groundplan can be reconstructed by mapping geometric morphometric data onto a phylogenetic tree

SUBMITTER: Zhang M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6443621 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature