A Geometric Morphometric Approach to the Quantitative Analysis of Worker Bee Legs in Diyala Governorate

Abstract

Geometric morphometric measurement was processed for the adult’s worker bees including social bees Apis mellifera and Apis florea and the solitary bee Lasioglossum aegyptiellum, it plays a crucial role in ecosystem balance through Symbiotic association, there are Symbiotic relationship between plant and bee. this collection of specimens were taken from different areas in Diyala Governorate bees, The aim of this study was to detect the morphological characteristics variance in the legs of the bees and identify the shape and size variance and extent convergences among species A. mellifera, A. florea and L.aegyptiellum. specimens were collected with nets from the flowers of plants that exist in the gardens and the farms,in this study the hind right legs were selected to be the part of the Bee's body in geometric morphometric approach .8 landmarks were identified in this study and placed on constant and apparent compositional points a joints on insect's leg at the loops contacting areas and the ends of different fragments a quantitative morphological variation is critical as result of impact of genetic factors polygenic traits. the analysis of PCA, Procrustes superimposition and CS were scaled. the results of this study showed that mean of centroid size of the hind right leg were1130.01,822.78 and 526.19 for the species A. florea, A. mellifera and L. aegyptiellum respectively.When comparing A. florea with A.mellifera (f =4.73, P=0.0 and T=9.26, P =5.03 and AD=307.24) and comparing A.florea with L.aegyptiellum (f=3.98 ,P=0.01and T=17.9, P=0.0 and AD=603.83) and comparing A.mellifera with L.aegyptiellum (f=1.18, P=0.75 and T=14.47, P=1.57and AD=296.59).this study demonstrate that Worker Bee Legs are different and it might to be a Supplementary tool to analysis genetic variance.