Chonephetsarath Somsanith, Raksakoon Chadchalerm, Sumruayphol Suchada, Dujardin Jean-Pierre, Potiwat Rutcharin
Department of Medical Entomology, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok 10400, Thailand.
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand.
Insects. 2021 Apr 21;12(5):376. doi: 10.3390/insects12050376.
Accurate identification of mosquito species is critically important for monitoring and controlling the impact of human diseases they transmit. Here, we investigate four mosquito species: , , and that co-occur in tropical and subtropical regions, and whose morphological similarity challenges their accurate identification, a crucial requirement in entomological surveillance programs. Previous publications reveal a clear taxonomic signal embedded in wing cell landmark configuration, as well as in the external contour of the wings. We explored this signal for internal cells of the wings as well, to determine whether internal cells could uniformly provide the same taxonomic information. For each cell to be tentatively assigned to its respective species, i.e., to measure the amount of its taxonomic information, we used the shape of its contour, rather than its size. We show that (i) the taxonomic signal of wing shape is not uniformly spread among internal cells of the wing, and (ii) the amount of taxonomic information of a given cell depends on the species under comparison. This unequal taxonomic signal of internal cells is not related to size, nor to apparent shape complexity. The strong taxonomic signal of some cells ensures that even partly damaged wings can be used to improve species recognition.
准确识别蚊种对于监测和控制它们传播的人类疾病的影响至关重要。在此，我们研究了四种在热带和亚热带地区共生的蚊种：[蚊种1]、[蚊种2]、[蚊种3]和[蚊种4]，它们的形态相似性对准确识别构成挑战，而准确识别是昆虫学监测项目的一项关键要求。先前的出版物揭示了翅细胞地标构型以及翅的外部轮廓中蕴含着明确的分类信号。我们还探索了翅内部细胞的这一信号，以确定内部细胞是否能一致地提供相同的分类信息。为了将每个细胞初步归到其各自的物种，即测量其分类信息的量，我们使用了其轮廓的形状，而非大小。我们表明：（i）翅形的分类信号并非均匀地分布在翅的内部细胞中；（ii）给定细胞的分类信息量取决于所比较的物种。内部细胞这种不平等的分类信号与大小无关，也与表面形状复杂性无关。某些细胞强烈的分类信号确保即使翅部分受损也可用于改善物种识别。
