# Research Trends, Hotspots and Future Perspectives of Geometric Morphometrics in Entomology: A Scientometric Review

## TL;DR

This paper reviews the growth and trends of geometric morphometrics in insect research, highlighting key contributors, methods, and future directions.

## Contribution

The study provides a scientometric analysis of 1321 papers to map research trends and hotspots in geometric morphometrics within entomology.

## Key findings

- Annual publications in the field have shown overall growth with evolving research methods.
- Brazil, the USA, and France are leading contributors to the field.
- Wing shape-based taxonomy is a major research hotspot linked to phylogeny and sexual dimorphism.

## Abstract

Geometric morphometrics is increasingly used in insect morphology research and has become a powerful tool in taxonomy, intraspecific variation, and phylogenetic studies. However, the overall development of this field has received little attention. In this study, we analyzed 1321 papers to summarize the application of geometric morphometrics in insect research over the past three decades. The results reveal rapid growth in publication output, with major contributions from Brazil, the USA, and France. Wing shape-based taxonomy represents a major research hotspot and is closely connected with phylogeny, allometry, and sexual dimorphism. This study summarizes the current research landscape and future directions, offering valuable references for researchers regarding methodological selection, research design, and interdisciplinary integration, and may further promote advances in insect biodiversity research and conservation practice.

Geometric morphometrics is an important component of quantitative research on insect morphology, widely applied in taxonomy, intraspecific variation, and phylogenetic studies. However, systematic research in this field remains limited, with few comprehensive summaries of research trends, hotspots, and core theories. This study, based on scientometric methods, analyzed 1321 publications indexed in the Web of Science database up to 31 December 2025, and presents a meta-scientific review from a macro perspective, revealing the research trends, hotspots, and future directions in the field. The results show that: (1) annual publications exhibit overall growth, while research methods evolved from single landmark analysis to multimodal and interdisciplinary approaches; (2) scientists from Brazil, the USA, and France are major contributors, with studies spanning morphology, taxonomy, and ecology; (3) taxonomic studies centered on wing shape analysis constitutes a major research hotspot, closely related to phylogeny, allometry, and sexual dimorphism; (4) highly co-cited studies provide the main theoretical and methodological foundations for the field. Future research, building on existing hotspots, will further integrate geometric morphometrics with genomics, ecological functional data, three-dimensional geometric morphometrics, and artificial intelligence-assisted approaches to advance integrative taxonomy within interdisciplinary and data-driven frameworks.