ARS | Publication request: Mitochondrial DNA in North American Lygus (Hemiptera: Miridae) Species: Analysis of Intra-and Inter-specific Relationships

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: February 2, 2009
Publication Date: March 15, 2009
Citation: Burange, P.S., Roehrdanz, R.L., Boetel, M.A. 2009. Mitochondrial DNA in North American Lygus (Hemiptera: Miridae) Species: Analysis of Intra-and Inter-specific Relationships [Abstract]. Entomological Society of America-North Central Branch Meeting. Poster No. 022.

Technical Abstract: The genus Lygus is widely distributed in North America and Eurasia. The tarnished plant bug, Lygus Iineolaris (Palisot de Beauvois), is one of the most serious pest species within this genus. The pest is known to have over 350 different plant hosts. Inter-and intra-specific genetic diversity of North American Lygus spp. was investigated by employing mitochondrial (mt) DNA molecular markers. The cox1 barcode region and a 768-bp region overlapping cox1 and cox2 were sequenced. A complete L. lineolaris mt genome (17027 bp) sequence is -3.5% divergent from L. hesperus after excluding the control region. Neighbor-joining, maximum parsimony, Bayesian interference, and maximum-likelihood analyses of cox1 and cox2 suggest that most L. Iineolaris individuals belong to two closely related clades showing a sympatric distribution, which might indicate that cryptic species exist within L. Iineolaris. Frequency differences of common haplotypes from widely dispersed populations of L. Iineolaris indicate the possibility of some geographically based population structure for this species. Phylogenetic analyses of 62 multi-species Lygus haplotype sequences representing North America and Europe show that L. Iineolaris, L. hesperus, L. rugulipennis, L. plagiatus, L. elisus, and L. vanduzeei are clustered by species, with a few exceptions. L. keltoni is not differentiated from L. borealis or L. hesperus by using mtDNA or morphological characters. Discordance between the observed mtDNA trees and species identifications based on morphological characters could provide important information regarding the potential existence of host-specific or regional strains or cryptic species within the genus Lygus and help clarify its phylogeny.