Review of the Geographical Distribution of Dendroctonus vitei (Curculionidae: Scolytinae) Based on Geometric Morphometrics of the Seminal Rod

Abstract

Abstract The known distribution of the bark beetle Dendroctonus vitei Wood has been basically restricted to species-type location in Patzun, Guatemala, and in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. There are also reports of the species in Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Nuevo Leon, Mexico. This bark beetle cannot be confidently distinguished from its sibling species Dendroctonus frontalis Zimmermann, Dendroctonus mexicanus Hopkins, and Dendroctonus sp. nov. by morphological characteristics (e.g., color and pronotum width). It has been proposal that the seminal rod is a useful characteristic to distinguish these species; however, its robustness has not been assessed quantitatively. The goal of the present work was to analyze the seminal rod from 601 specimens of the D. frontalis complex, collected in 89 locations from Mexico and Guatemala, using geometric morphometrics to clarify and update the distribution of D. vitei. Our results confirmed the presence of this species not only in the previously recognized locations (Patzun, Guatemala; San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas; Perote Veracruz, and Chipinque, Nuevo Leon) but also in seven new ones. The analyzed specimens of D. vitei and other D. frontalis complex species showed a strong differentiation in seminal rod shape among them. The accumulated information indicates that D. vitei is distributed across the entire Sierra Madre Oriental, the east Trans-Mexican volcanic belt, the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, and the Cordillera Central of Guatemala.