Wing Morphometrics for Species Diagnosis of Leafminer Flies (Genus Liriomyza) in Thailand
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14456/thaidoa-agres.2025.14Keywords:
species diagnosis, wing morphometrics, leafminer, quarantine pestAbstract
Leafminer flies of the genus Liriomyza are serious pests that damage a wide range of vegetable crops. These flies are also significant quarantine pests that exported vegetables must be inspected to prevent the infestation of these pests in plant materials. Accurate species identification of the genus Liriomyza using conventional external characters is difficult due to morphological similarities among Liriomyza species. This study aimed to evaluate the wing morphometrics in distinguishing among five Liriomyza species: L. brassicae, L. chinensis, L. huidobrensis, L. sativae and L. trifolii. Sixteen homologous landmarks were digitized on the wings for geometric morphometric analysis. The results revealed significant differences in centroid size among species (P<0.05) with L. brassicae exhibiting the smallest wing size (1.58 ± 0.03 mm) and L. huidobrensis the largest (2.34 ± 0.05 mm). Canonical variate analysis demonstrated that L. chinensis and L. huidobrensis could be clearly separated from the remaining three species based on wing shape, while L. brassicae, L. sativae and L. trifolii exhibited highly similar wing morphologies, making them more difficult to distinguish. In conclusion, wing morphometrics is an effective tool for identifying L. chinensis and L. huidobrensis from the remaining three species and can be applied for plant quarantine inspection for vegetable exports in Thailand. However, due to overlapping wing shapes among L. brassicae, L. sativae and L. trifolii, further dentification using male genitalia or nucleotides is recommended to improve the accuracy of species discrimination.
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