Geometric morphometric study of two species of the psammophilous genus Erodiontes (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) from the Lute desert, Central Iran

A geometric morphometric study of the genus Erodiontes was carried out using the Elliptic Fourier method to demonstrate the effect of vicariance on populations of these psammophilous species. Four populations of Erodiontes, comprising E. aelleni and E. pfaundleri, were sampled from Chartaghi, Aboozeidabad, Meser and Hojatabad. Differences between the shapes of the conspecific populations are minute, suggesting that the separation of conspecific populations is recent. In contrast, populations of E. pfaundleri showed significant differences in pronotum size whereas it was similar in size in populations of E. aelleni. This difference is believed to be due to environmental factors such as temperature and nutrition.