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ARS Home » Plains Area » Fargo, North Dakota » Edward T. Schafer Agricultural Research Center » Sunflower Improvement Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #420363
Research Project: Sunflower Yield, Crop Quality, and Interactions with Biotic and Abiotic Stressors

Location: Sunflower Improvement Research

Title: Population genomics of red sunflower seed weevil, Smicronyx fulvus

Author
item MILLER, NICHOLAS - Illinois Institute Of Technology
item Prasifka, Jarrad

Submitted to: National Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/24/2024
Publication Date: 11/10/2024
Citation: Miller, N.J., Prasifka, J.R. 2024. Population genomics of red sunflower seed weevil, Smicronyx fulvus. National Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Smicronyx fulvus is a pest of cultivated sunflowers that is typically controlled by aerial applications of insecticides. In recent years, increased damage to sunflower crops in South Dakota has raised concerns that the weevil may be evolving resistance to pyrethroids. Almost nothing is known about the dispersal capabilities and population genetic structure of this insect, making it impossible to predict how insecticide resistance alleles might spread through the larger population. We assembled a low-coverage draft assembly of the S. fulvus genome and used this as a reference to map short-read sequencing data from pooled weevil population samples collected along a transect from North Dakota to Colorado. The pool-seq data allowed us to identify over 20 million polymorphic sites within the S. fulvus genome. Analysis of a subset of the polymorphic sites indicated essentially no population genetic structure among sites in the transect. This suggests that the dispersal capabilities of S. fulvus are considerable and that insecticide-resistance or otherwise undesirable alleles can spread rapidly over large distances. The draft genome / pool-seq approach we took for this study allowed us to evaluate gene flow quickly and inexpensively. In addition, it also gave us access to the sequences of genes with a potential role in the mechanism of insecticide resistance.