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Title: BIODIVERSITY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY OF AN IMPORTANT INBRED PEST OF COFFEE, THE COFFEE BERRY BORER, HYPOTHENEMUS HAMPEI (FERRAI).

Author
item BENAVIDES, PABLO - PURDUE UNIV. ENT. DEPT
item Vega, Fernando
item SEVERSON, JEANNE - DEPT. OF FORESTRY
item BUSTILLO, ALEX - CENICAF'E
item STUART, JEFFREY - PURDUE UNIV. ENT. DEPT

Submitted to: Annals of the Entomological Society of America
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/23/2005
Publication Date: 5/2/2005
Citation: Benavides, P., Vega, F.E., Severson, J.R., Bustillo, A.E., Stuart, J.J. 2005. Biodiversity and biogeography of an important inbred pest of coffee, the coffee berry borer, hypothenemus hampei (ferrai).. Annals of the Entomological Society of America. 98:359-366

Interpretive Summary: The coffee berry borer is the most devastating pest of coffee throughout the world. Eggs are deposited inside coffee berries, and insects feed on the coffee seed, severely reducing yields. A molecular study, aimed at assessing the genetic relatedness among coffee berry borers from different parts of the world, indicates that there is only one coffee berry borer species throughout the world. Thus, pest management options developed against the coffee berry borer should be applicable wherever the insect is present and won't have to be concerned with different insect responses to treatment, which could be the case when more than one species is causing the problem.

Technical Abstract: AFLP fingerprinting was used to detect DNA polymorphisms in Hypothenemus hampei, the most important insect pest of coffee. Insects were collected from Brazil, Cameroon, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Uganda. The percentage of the AFLP bands that were polymorphic between samples within countries ranged between 0% and 10.4%, but 22.4% of all bands had at least one polymorphism across all primer combinations. The greatest variation was observed among samples from East Africa, consistent with this pest's presumed East African center of origin. The low genetic variability found on H. hampei samples was consistent with the worldwide dispersion of only one species. The data were suggestive of at least two separate introductions of H. hampei into Brazil, which subsequently dispersed throughout the Americas. A third introduction into the Americas was evident in Peru and Colombia.