AN ASSESSMENT OF MORPHOMETRIC VARIABILITY BETWEEN POPULATIONS OF LONGIDORUS-VINEACOLA STURHAN AND WEISCHER, 1964 (NEMATODA, LONGIDORIDAE) AND MORPHOLOGICALLY RELATED SPECIES

Morphometrics of female specimens from 46 populations and species belo nging to the Longidorus vineacola Sturhan & Weischer, 1964 ''complex'' were examined. L. vineacola was present as 36 populations; L. attenua tus Hooper, 1961 and L. cohni Heyns, 1969 each as two populations; and L. apulus Lamberti & Bleve-Zacheo, 1977, L. closelongatus Stoyanov, 1 964 and L. pseudoelongatus Altherr; 1976 each as a single population. Specimens from two populations from France and Italy which had origina lly been identified as L. vineacola were found to be L. paraelongatus Althen; 1974 and L. proximus Sturhan & Argo, 1983, respectively. A pop ulation from the Netherlands represented an unidentified species but t he number of specimens available was insufficient to establish a new s pecies. In a canonical variate analysis using the five morphometric ch aracters of body, odontostyle, odontophore, anterior to guide ring and tail lengths, the L. vineacola populations formed several clusters an d the other species formed separate clusters. All 46 populations forme d a homogeneous group at 87% level of similarity. It is concluded that the five morphological characters used for the analysis provide a rel iable means for distinguishing members of the L. vineacola complex of morphologically similar species. L. apuloides Roca, 1996 is considered a junior synonym of L. vineacola.