Investigation of Mealybug (Hemiptera: Coccoidea: Pseudococcidae) Species From Turkey by Rapd

Abstract

Molecular markers are commonly used for determining the relationship between insect species. In this study, we investigated the relationship of six mealybug species, Planococcus citri (Risso), Planococcus ficus (Signoret), Planococcus vovae (Nasonov), Pseudococcus longispinus (Targioni Tozzetti), Pseudococcus viburni (Signoret) and Phenacoccus aceris (Signoret), sampled from Turkey, using randomly amplified polymorphic DNA-polymerase chain reaction (RAPD-PCR). Of the 50 RAPD primers tested, 18 identified a total of 256 fragments of which all were polymorphic. Sufficient discrimination between P. citri and P ficus was provided by several RAPD primers. The genetic distance values calculated for each pair-wise comparison ranged from 0.156 to 0.504. Cluster analyses of RAPD data clearly separated the species into two groups.