Morphological Diversity as a Proxy for Assessing Genetic Diversity of Aedes aegypti (Diptera, Culicidae)

Aedes aegypti transmits viruses to millions of people worldwide. Despite the availability of vaccines, control and monitoring of mosquitoes is mandatory, which in turn requires knowledge of microevolutionary population genetics. Genetic techniques permit the assessment of biological parameters directly linked to the epidemiological importance of the insect (polymorphism, migration, fitness). However, these techniques are costly to most health surveillance services. Even for research laboratories, genotyping and estimation of variability may be unfeasible and time consuming. We conjectured that the wing geometry of Ae. aegypti could serve as an alternative indicator of genetic variability in mosquitoes, as wing shape is a useful taxonomic marker determined by quantitative heritage. We investigated this conjecture by testing if wild Ae. aegypti populations with high genetic variability had higher wing morphological diversity than inbred colonised populations. Using wing geometric morphometrics and microsatellite DNA genotyping of some populational samples, we confirmed this conjecture. The morphological diversity index was partly correspondent with genetic variability indexes such as theta, gene diversity and alleles per locus. Our findings, although circumscribed to the populational samples studied, indicate that wing geometry may be used as a cheap and quick semi-quantitative proxy for genetic variability.