Data from: Evolution of wing shape in hornets: why is the wing venation efficient for species identification?

Wing venation has long been used for insect identification. Lately, the characterization of venation shape using geometric morphometrics has further improved the potential of using the wing for insect identification. However, external factors inducing variation in wing shape could obscure specific differences, preventing accurate discrimination of species in heterogeneous samples. Here, we show that interspecific difference is the main source of wing shape variation within social wasps. We found that a naive clustering of wing shape data from taxonomically and geographically heterogeneous samples of workers returned groups congruent with species. We also confirmed that individuals can be reliably attributed to their genus, species and populations on the basis of their wing shape. Our results suggested that the shape variation reflects the evolutionary history with a potential influence of other factors such as body shape, climate and mimicry selective pressures. However, the high dimensionality of wing shape variation may have prevented absolute convergences between the different species. Wing venation shape is thus a taxonomically relevant marker combining the accuracy of quantitative characters with the specificity required for identification criteria. This marker may also highlight adaptive processes that could help understand the wing's influence on insect flight.翅脉（wing venation）长期以来一直被应用于昆虫物种鉴定工作。近年来，借助几何形态测量学（geometric morphometrics）开展翅脉形态表征的技术手段，进一步提升了利用翅部特征开展昆虫鉴定的应用潜力。然而，引发翅形变异的外部因素可能会掩盖物种间的特异性差异，使得在异质性样本中难以精准区分物种。本研究证实，在社会胡蜂（social wasps）类群中，种间差异是翅形变异的主要来源。我们发现，对取自分类学与地理学异质性工蜂样本的翅形数据开展朴素聚类（naive clustering）后，所得聚类分组与物种分类单元高度吻合。此外，我们还证实，仅凭翅形特征即可将个体可靠地归类至其所属的属、种以及种群。研究结果表明，翅形变异不仅反映了类群的演化历史，同时还受到体型、气候以及拟态选择压力等其他因素的潜在影响。不过，翅形变异的高维度特性可能阻碍了不同物种间出现绝对的形态趋同。因此，翅脉形态是一类具备分类学价值的特征标记：它兼具数量性状的精准性与鉴定标准所需的特异性。该特征标记还有助于揭示适应性演化过程，从而助力我们理解翅部特征对昆虫飞行能力的影响。