MORPHOMETRIC EVALUATION OF 20 HETERORHABDITIS ISOLATES FROM PUERTO-RICO

From November 1992 through January 1993 soil samples were collected fr om different localities of Puerto Rico to isolate entomapathogenic nem atodes. Samples were baited with the greater wax moth, Galleria mellon ella, under laboratory conditions. Nematodes belonging to the genus He terorhabditis were isolated from 20 of the baited samples. The nematod es could not be properly identified to species but were found closely related to H. bacteriophora and H. indicus. Thirteen morphometric char acters of the infective third-stage juvenile were measured for each is olate and subjected to evaluation by Standard Descriptive Statistics, Stepwise Discriminant Analysis, Canonical Discriminant Analysis and Hi erarchical Cluster Analysis. Results suggested the presence of a new s pecies of Heterorhabditis with sufficient variation among the isolates to separate three different subgroups.