Changbunjong Tanasak, Weluwanarak Thekhawet, Chaiphongpachara Tanawat
Department of Pre-Clinic and Applied Animal Science, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom, 73170, Thailand.
The Monitoring and Surveillance Center for Zoonotic Diseases in Wildlife and Exotic Animals (MoZWE), Faculty of Veterinary Science, Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom, 73170, Thailand.
Curr Res Parasitol Vector Borne Dis. 2024 Oct 3;6:100218. doi: 10.1016/j.crpvbd.2024.100218. eCollection 2024.
Accurate species identification of horse flies (Diptera: Tabanidae) is crucial due to their role as vectors for various pathogens, which is essential for understanding their biology, devising strategies to control their populations, and enhancing disease surveillance. This study assessed the efficacy of outline-based geometric morphometrics (GM) by analyzing the wing cell contours of discal, first submarginal, and second submarginal cells to distinguish three morphologically similar species commonly found in Thailand, , , and . Statistical analysis demonstrated significant size differences between and the two other species ( < 0.05), with exhibiting larger wing cells. and had similar sizes; their size differences were not statistically significant. The accuracy of size analysis based on validated classification tests was relatively low, ranging from 64.67% to 68.67%. Nonetheless, all wing cell contours showed significant shape differences between the three species, as confirmed by Mahalanobis distance comparisons using 1000 permutation tests ( < 0.05). The shape of the first submarginal cell contour showed the highest classification accuracy (86.67%). Outline-based GM offers a significant advantage for analyzing fly specimens with incomplete wings that have intact cells. For damaged specimens, analyzing the contour of the first submarginal cell through this technique can be a viable alternative.
准确鉴定厩螫蝇（双翅目：螫蝇科）至关重要，因为它们是多种病原体的传播媒介，这对于了解其生物学特性、制定种群控制策略以及加强疾病监测至关重要。本研究通过分析盘室、第一亚缘室和第二亚缘室的翅细胞轮廓，评估基于轮廓的几何形态测量学（GM）区分泰国常见的三种形态相似物种——[物种1]、[物种2]和[物种3]的功效。统计分析表明，[物种1]与其他两个物种之间存在显著的大小差异（P < 0.05），[物种1]的翅细胞较大。[物种2]和[物种3]大小相似，它们的大小差异无统计学意义。基于验证分类测试的大小分析准确性相对较低，范围为64.67%至68.67%。尽管如此，通过1000次置换检验的马氏距离比较证实，所有翅细胞轮廓在这三个物种之间均显示出显著的形状差异（P < 0.05）。第一亚缘室轮廓的形状显示出最高的分类准确率（86.67%）。基于轮廓的GM为分析具有完整细胞的翅不完整的蝇类标本提供了显著优势。对于受损标本，通过该技术分析第一亚缘室的轮廓可能是一种可行的替代方法。
