Page 7 - vol64-2011-215-222deidun
P. 7

signing these populations to a separate subspecies in            CANZONERI S., 1968.- Materiali per una monografia delle Pha-
view of their consistent morphological divergence from             leria del sottogenere Phaleria Latr.- Memorie della Società
Phaleria bimaculata bimaculata (L.).                               Entomologica Italiana, 47: 117-167.

  In relation to the results of the geometric morphomet-         CANZONERI S., 1970.- I Tenebrionidi delle Isole Egadi.- Me-
ric analysis, major body shape differences seem to be              morie del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Verona, 18:
probably related to geometric differences in elytra, as            55-89.
evident from deformation grids (figure 3): the elytra of
the individuals from Vulcano (points 31-45 in the plot)          COLOMBINI I., CHAOUTI A., FALLACI M., GAGNARLI E., BAYED
were more elongated and elliptical in comparison to the            A., CHELAZZI L., 2008.- An assessment of sandy beach
Maltese individuals (1-15) and the Sicilian individuals            macroinvertebrates inhabiting the coastal fringe of the Oued
(16-30), with the latter being positioned in the central           Laou river catchment area (Northern Morocco).- Travaux de
area of the plot.                                                  l'Institut Scientifique (Rabat, série générale), 5: 81-91.

  In conclusion, our study confirms the high degree of           DEIDUN A., AZZOPARDI M., SALIBA S., SCHEMBRI P. J., 2003.-
inter-population morphological variability within P. bi-           Low faunal diversity on Maltese sandy beaches: fact or arte-
maculata in the surveyed geographical area, and our re-            fact?- Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 58S: 83-92.
sults are compatible with the possible sub-specific taxo-
nomic status of the Aeolian populations (ssp. mar-               DEIDUN A., PAWLEY A., SCHEMBRI P. J., 2010.- Distribution
cuzzii). It is recommended that the degree of such inter-          and biology of two sympatric Phaleria species (Coleoptera:
population morphological variability and the phy-                  Tenebrionidae) on Maltese sandy beaches, pp. 737. In: Pro-
logeographic implications alluded to in this study                 ceedings of the 39th CIESM Congress, Venice, Italy.
should be further assessed through the application of
appropriate molecular techniques, in order to further de-        DE JONG Y. S. D. M., 2010.- Fauna Europaea version 2.3.-
fine the taxonomic status of the various P. bimaculata             [online] URL: http://www.faunaeur.org (Accessed on 25
populations.                                                       February 2011).

Acknowledgements                                                 FATTORINI S., 2008.- Ecology and conservation of tenebrionid
                                                                   beetles in Mediterranean coastal areas, pp. 165-297. In: In-
This study was financed by a grant from the Research               sect ecology and conservation (FATTORINI S., Ed.).- Re-
Committee of the University of Malta, to which the au-             search Signpost, Trivandrum, India.
thors are indebted. The authors are also grateful to the
following individuals who helped in the sampling ses-            GAUCI M., DEIDUN A., SCHEMBRI P. J., 2005.- Faunistic diver-
sions on the Maltese Islands: Esther Sciberras, Romario            sity of Maltese pocket sandy and shingle beaches: are these
Sciberras, Corrinne Caruana, Luke Gauci, Simon Sul-                of conservation value?- Oceanologia, 27 (2): 219-241.
tana Harkins and Matthew Borg Cardona. The authors
are also grateful to three anonymous referees for their          KLINGENBERG C. P., 2011.- MORPHOJ: an integrated soft-
comments which greatly improved the manuscript.                    ware package for geometric Morphometrics.- Molecular
                                                                   Ecology Resources, 11: 353-357.
References
                                                                 LÖBL I., SMETANA A., 2008.- Catalogue of Palaearctic Col-
ADAMS D. C., ROHLF F. J., SLICE D. E., 2004.- Geometric            eoptera. 5. Tenebrionoidea.- Apollo Books, Stenstrup, Den-
  morphometrics: ten years of progress following the ‘revolu-      mark.
  tion’.- Italian Journal of Zoology, 71: 5-16.
                                                                 MARCUZZI G., 1996.- Il melanismo nel genere Phaleria La-
ALIQUO V., 1993.- Dati nuovi e riassuntivi sui coleotteri Te-      treille (Insecta, Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae).- Bollettino del-
  nebrionidi delle isole circumsiciliane (Coleoptera: Tene-        l'Accademia Gioenia di Scienze Naturali in Catania, 29
  brionidae).- Naturalista Siciliano, 17: 111-125.                 (351): 9-13.

ALIQUO V., SOLDATI F., 2010.- Coleotteri Tenebrionidi di Sici-   MIFSUD D., SCUPOLA A., 1998.- The Tenebrionidae (Coleop-
  lia (Insecta: Coleoptera Tenebrionidae). Monografie Natu-        tera) of the Maltese Islands (Central Mediterranean).- Annali
  ralistiche 1.- Edizioni Danaus, Palermo, Italy.                  del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale Giacomo Doria, 92:
                                                                   191-229.
ALIQUO V., LEO P., LO CASCIO P., 2006.- I Tenebrionidi
  dell’Arcipelago Eoliano: nuovi dati faunistici e zoogeografi-  MINELLI A., CHEMINI C., ARGANO R., RUFFO S., 2002.- La
  ci con descrizione di una nuova specie di Nalassus Mulsant,      fauna in Italia.- Touring Editore, Milano, Italy.
  1854.- Naturalista Siciliano, 30: 293-314.
                                                                 PALMER M., 2002a.- Landmark-based morphometric analysis
BONOMETTO L., CANZONERI S., 1970.- I Tenebrionidae delle           of two sibling species of the genus Asida (Coleoptera, Tene-
  spiagge e dune del litorale di Venezia.- Bollettino del Museo    brionidae).- Contributions to Zoology, 70 (4): [online] URL:
  Civico di Storia Naturale di Venezia, 20-21: 223-231.            http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/ctz/vol70/nr04/art02

BOOKSTEIN F. L., 1989.- Principal warps: thin-plate splines      PALMER M., 2002b.- Testing the ‘island rule’ for a tenebrionid
  and the decomposition of deformations.- IEEE Transactions        beetles (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae).- Acta Oecologica, 23:
  on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 11: 567-585.       103-107.

BOOKSTEIN F. L., 1991.- Morphometric tools for landmark          ROHLF F. J., 1993.- Relative warps analysis and an example of
  data: geometry and biology.- Biology Cambridge University        its application to Mosquito wings, pp. 132-159. In: Contri-
  Press, Cambridge, UK.                                            butions to morphometrics (MARCUS L. F., BELLO E., GAR-
                                                                   CIA-VALDECASAS A., Eds).- Monografias del Museo Na-
                                                                   tional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid, Spain.

                                                                 ROHLF F. J., 1996.- Morphometric spaces, shape components
                                                                   and the effects of linear transformations, pp. 117-129. In:
                                                                   Advances in morphometrics (MARCUS L. F., CORTI M., LOY
                                                                   A., NAYLOR G. J. P., SLICE D. E., Eds).- Plenum Publishing
                                                                   Corp., New York, USA.

                                                                 ROHLF F. J., 2004.- tpsDIG 2 software.- available at
                                                                   http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/morph/.

                                                                 ROHLF F. J., 2008.- tpsUtil 1.45.- available at
                                                                   http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/morph/.

                                                                 ROHLF F. J., MARCUS L. F., 1993.- A revolution in mor-
                                                                   phometrics.- Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 8 (4): 129-132.

                                                                 221
   2   3   4   5   6   7   8