Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration

Wing venation characteristics are fundamental for defining and classifying insects. In bees these characteristics are relatively conserved, but the patterns between groups remain poorly understood. We employed geometric morphometrics to assess variation in wing venation across bees taxa. Geometric morphometrics allows for detailed shape analysis of wing structure, which may provide insights into evolutionary relationships. By digitally landmarking homologous wing vein characters of a diverse sample of bees, we quantified and compared phenotypic variation in order to assess whether the resulting morphological clusters reflect evolutionary divergence and align with established phylogeny. This study assesses the potential of geometric morphometrics to infer the phylogenetic placement of indeterminate bee species based solely on wing vein patterns and provides an effective pathway for species identification.

Presented at the UCSB EEMB Undergraduate Research Symposium 2024