Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

The Relationship Between Category Richness and Morphological Diversity in Jewel Beetles

Version 1 : Received: 14 September 2020 / Approved: 17 September 2020 / Online: 17 September 2020 (05:56:52 CEST)

How to cite: Tong, Y.; Yang, H.; Yang, X.; Bai, M. The Relationship Between Category Richness and Morphological Diversity in Jewel Beetles. Preprints 2020, 2020090378. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202009.0378.v1 Tong, Y.; Yang, H.; Yang, X.; Bai, M. The Relationship Between Category Richness and Morphological Diversity in Jewel Beetles. Preprints 2020, 2020090378. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202009.0378.v1

Abstract

Correlation between the category richness (CR) and morphological diversity (MD) of some communities at a local scale was found pendent, however, examination of a whole category using a large dataset are lacking. In this study, 1119 jewel species from around the world representing all existing subfamilies and 33.78% of Buprestidae genera were selected as a test group. A geometric morphometric analysis on the contour of homologous traits: pronotum and elytra was conducted to quantify morphological diversity. Correlations between MD and CR among subfamilies were found to be consistently positive with the exceptions of a pronotum genus-level test on the subfamily category. The correlation was also found to be higher at the genus-level than it on the species-level, in both pronotum and elytron measurements. Based on our analyses the hypothesis of positive correlations was expected in the genus-level test of jewel beetles but rejected in species-level test. The inconsistent correlation between morphological diversity and species richness revealed convergent morphological variation of pronotum under the similar functional diversity in Buprestidae. In addition, our test revealed variable correlation between MD and CR based on different groups and characters, which might be caused by morphological changes under coevolution with different ecological factors.

Keywords

morphological diversity; species richness; jewel beetle; geometric morphometrics; elytron; pronotum

Subject

Biology and Life Sciences, Insect Science

Comments (1)

Comment 1
Received: 8 October 2020
Commenter: (Click to see Publons profile: )
The commenter has declared there is no conflict of interests.
Comment: As an entomologist, I was very pleased to read the article. In which it was found that there is a correlation between the richness of categories (CR) and morphological diversity (MD) of some communities at the local scale, but studies of the entire category using a large dataset are not available. I have a job dedicated to this research for Silphidae. In this study, 1,119 gemstone species from around the world, representing all existing subfamilies, and 33.78% of the genera of Buprestidae were selected as the test group. Geometric morphometric analysis of the contour of homologous characters: pronotum and elytra was carried out to quantitatively assess morphological diversity. The correlation between MD and CR among subfamilies was consistently positive, with the exception of the pronotal genus test in the subfamily category. It was also found that the correlation at the genus level is higher than at the species level, both in the measurements of the pronotum and elytra. Based on our analysis, the hypothesis of positive correlations was expected in the test at the level of the gem beetle genus, but rejected in the test at the species level. The inconsistent correlation between morphological diversity and species richness revealed convergent morphological variability of the pronotum with similar functional diversity in the Buprestidae. Contains important methodological recommendations that will allow the use of similar studies for other families Coleoptera.
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