Integrative Taxonomy

INTRODUCTION
Integrative taxonomy is a multisource approach that takes advantage of complementarity among disciplines. Three imperatives drive integrative taxonomy. First, morphological methods fail in some cases, absolutely needing the use of other approaches. Second, even where morphology can succeed in delimiting species, other approaches can assist significantly and speed the process. Third, the use of several disciplines helps taxonomy going beyond the name of species and to understand the processes bringing them about. This is especially apparent in cases of disagreement among disciplines (Schlick-Steiner et al., 2010). Both genetics and morphology should be included in the first set of disciplines to be applied because, on the one hand, species are genetic and not morphological entities, and on the other hand, morphological identification is generally much easier when it is possible.
Within the genus Macrolophus (Heteroptera: Miridae), the species M. costalis (Fieber), M. melanotoma (Costa) and M. pygmaeus (Rambur) are present in the

pygmaeus, 29 males of M. melanotoma and 26 males of M. costalis were used. Individuals were taken from the rearing colonies, killed by freezing and stored in 70º ethanol. Specimens were dissected in Beadle saline solution (128.3 mM NaCl, 4.7 mM KCl and 23mM CaCl2) under a stereoscopic microscope (Leica MZ 12.5), as described in Franco et al. (2011). The distal part of the abdomen was clipped, placed in 10% KOH, and incubated in an oven (60ºC) for 4 hours to remove soft tissues. After KOH treatment the specimen was neutralized with 5% glacial acetic and dehydrated in 99º ethanol. The left paramere was dissected in glycerin with the aid of a fine needle. Dissected paramers were mounted on glycerin jelly mounting media (1:17:17, gelatin: glycerin: distilled water) using coverslip spacers in order to avoid compression (Klaus, 2003). The rest of the specimen was individually stored in 70º