Testing species limits in the highly variable scarab Cyclocephalasexpunctata (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae)
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Members of the speciose genus Cyclocephala (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae) exhibit intraspecific variation of elytral patterns and genital morphology, creating diagnostic difficulties that confound study of the group. This study aims to comprehensively describe and explain the maintenance of intraspecific variation in C. sexpunctataand C. brevisusing morphological, molecular and phylogeographic techniques. The mitochondrial gene CO1 was successfully amplified from C. sexpunctataspecimens. Preliminary analyses of data on elytral and pronotal patterns indicate that populations of C. sexpunctatafrom Panama and Guatemala have different frequency distributions of pattern classes. Variation in these populations is distributed along altitudinal clines.
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Research completed at Department of Biological Sciences, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
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v.6