<![CDATA[Abstract. Fatimah E, Herwina H, Dahelmi, Santoso P, Salmah S, Jasmi, Janra MN, Rusdimansyah, Alponsin, Yandrizal. 2026. Integrative morphometric and molecular assessment of Tetragonula stingless bees (Apidae: Meliponini) at Edufarm Universitas Andalas, West Sumatra, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 27 (9): d270904. https://doi.org/10.13057/biodiv/d270904. Several stingless bee species of the genus Tetragonula are morphologically similar, making accurate identification difficult using morphology alone. This study characterized morphometric variation and provided preliminary molecular support for the identification of five Tetragonula taxa from Edufarm, Universitas Andalas, West Sumatra, Indonesia, using morphometric and mitochondrial DNA markers. Fifty worker bees were measured for 34 morphometric characters, while one representative per taxon was analyzed using cytochrome C Oxidase subunit I (COI) and 16S rRNA genes. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed that PC1 explained 93.10% of the total variance (eigenvalue = 31.654), indicating overall body size as the main source of morphometric variation. Hierarchical clustering showed consistent phenetic differentiation among taxa, and PERMANOVA confirmed significant multivariate differences (F₄,₄₅ = 253.37, R² = 0.9575, p = 0.001). PERMDISP showed no significant differences in within-group dispersion (F₄,₄₅ = 2.019, p = 0.116), indicating that PERMANOVA mainly reflected differences among group centroids. COI analysis provided preliminary molecular support for several taxa. Tetragonula collina showed low pairwise distances to conspecific references (0.020-0.028), whereas T. fuscobalteata showed marked divergence (approximately 0.139-0.299). Tetragonula minangkabau, T. minangkabau forma darek, and T. testaceitarsis had relatively low COI distances and formed a closely related group, although their relationships could not be resolved from single-specimen sampling. The 16S rRNA marker showed more conservative divergence and supported the identification of several taxa, while the placement of T. collina remained unresolved. This study also provides new COI sequences for T. minangkabau, T. minangkabau forma darek, and T. testaceitarsis, and the first reported 16S rRNA sequence for T. testaceitarsis, providing a useful molecular reference baseline for future taxonomic and biodiversity studies in West Sumatra, Indonesia.]]>
