What you sample is what you get: ecomorphological variation in Trithemis (Odonata, Libellulidae) dragonfly wings reconsidered

Abstract Background The phylogenetic ecology of the Afro-Asian dragonfly genus Trithemis has been investigated previously by Damm et al. (in Mol Phylogenet Evol 54:870–882, 2010) and wing ecomorphology by Outomuro et al. (in J Evol Biol 26:1866–1874, 2013). However, the latter investigation employed a somewhat coarse sampling of forewing and hindwing outlines and reported results that were at odds in some ways with expectations given the mapping of landscape and water-body preference over the Trithemis cladogram produced by Damm et al. (in Mol Phylogenet Evol 54:870–882, 2010). To further explore the link between species-specific wing shape variation and habitat we studied a new sample of 27 Trithemis species employing a more robust statistical test for phylogenetic covariation, more comprehensive representations of Trithemis wing morphology and a wider range of morphometric data-analysis procedures. Results ...