Main Page English Version  
Previous Up Next

А.Ю.Солодовников. Хетотаксия личинок жуков как средство для эволюционн. исследований и систематики...


А.Ю. Солодовников



A.Yu. Solodovnikov
Larval chaetotaxy of Coleoptera (Insecta) as a tool for evolutionary research and systematics: less confusion, more clarity.
J. Zool. Syst. Evol. Res. (Blackwell Verlag, Berlin), 2007, 45(2): 120-127.
 
Abstract.
Chaetotaxy of beetle larvae is a significant source of characters for descriptive and phylogenetic aspects of systematics of this largest group of animals of comparable age. Survey of the mostly modern systematic literature employing larval chaetotaxy in Coleoptera reveals, however, that contrary to some general claims for the utility of this character set, use of larval chaetotaxy is rather limited. This is mostly because researchers find working with larval chaetotaxy difficult and time consuming. Factors that make exploration of chaetotaxy so cumbersome are methodologically analysed here and divided into two categories: intrinsic and operational. It is revealed that the most dangerous of them are operational, which arise from the multiplication of inconsistencies coming from different levels of comparative morphological research. As a result, ill-defined assessments of larval chaetotaxy may bring more confusion than clarity to the systematics of beetles, especially to its phylogenetic component which is intuitively avoided by researchers who refuse to use chaetotaxy. This paper attempts to scrutinize the sources of these inconsistencies undermining studies of larval chaetotaxy in hope of eliminating them from present and future systematic studies of Coleoptera. Some methodological issues raised here are also applicable to adult Coleoptera, to other insects and invertebrates, or to the proper ways of exploring the comparative morphology of living organisms, underlying evolutionary and systematic research.



Файл PDF: solodovnikov2007.pdf