Code and data to perform in R the analysis presented in the paper "Wing shape variation in the taxonomic recognition of species of Diachlorus Osten-Sacken (Diptera: Tabanidae) from Colombia" (Torres & Miranda-Esquivel 2015) DOI: 10.1007/s13744-015-0350-1. Neotropical Entomology, ISSN: 1519-566X; 1678-8052. (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13744-015-0350-1#/page-1)
NOTE 1: VERY VERY VERY FEW PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF DATA HANDLING IN R IS REQUIRED TO PERFORM THE ANALYSIS (e.g import data sets, set working directory, etc).
NOTE 2: PLEASE READ THE DOCUMENT "README.TXT".
Article:
Wing shape variation in the taxonomic recognition of species of Diachlorus Osten-Sacken (Diptera: Tabanidae) from Colombia.
*Ambrosio Torres, *Daniel R. Miranda-Esquivel
*Laboratorio de Sistemática y Biogeografía, Escuela de Biología, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia
Abstract
We evaluated the directional asymmetry between right and left wings, and quantified the intraspecific and interspecific variation of the wing shape of 601 specimens of the genus Diachlorus to determine to what extent the geometrical variation discriminates six species distributed in six protected areas of Colombia. Geometric analyses were performed, integrating Procrustes methods, principal component analyses, cluster analyses, linear and quadratic discriminant analyses, and evaluations of shape changes. In Diachlorus, left and right wings did not present significant asymmetry, but a geometrical analysis allowed for species identification and, in some cases the origin of the specimens using the variation of wing shape; the best assigned species was Diachlorus leticia Wilkerson & Fairchild, while the worst was Diachlorus jobbinsi Fairchild, which also had the highest intraspecific variation, while Diachlorus fuscistigma Lutz had the lowest variation. Diachlorus fuscistigma and Diachlorus leucotibialis Wilkerson & Fairchild were the most similar species, while D. leucotibialis and Diachlorus nuneztovari Fairchild & Ortiz were the most alike. The specimens with the most different wing shape belonged to Chocó (especially those of D. jobbinsi), the geographically farthest area from the others in the study; however, no correlation was observed between geometric and geographical distances. Linear discriminants were better than non-linear (quadratic) discriminant analyses in predicting species membership, but the opposite was true for predicting area membership. Based on our data, we hypothesized that other species of Diachlorus could also be discriminated using geometric morphometry of the wing shape.
Keywords: Taxonomy, morphometrics, Neotropical Tabanidae, discriminant analysis