Molecular discrimination of phytoseiids associated with the red palm mite Raoiella indica (Acari: Tenuipalpidae) from Mauritius and South Florida

Abstract

Phytoseiid populations imported from Mauritius for evaluation for a classical biological control program in Florida, USA, were morphologically identified as Amblyseius largoensis Muma, a species associated with the red palm mite in south Florida and the Caribbean. Bayesian analysis and sequence divergences of the mitochondrial 12S rRNA and nuclear Elongation factor--I alpha (EF-Iα) genes and Neighbor-Joining analysis of High-fidelity-RAPD-PCR markers were used to discriminate between the south Florida and Mauritius populations. High-fidelity-RAPD-PCR markers in addition to Bayesian and sequence divergence analyses of the 12S rRNA sequences suggest that the Mauritius and south Florida populations are genetically different but whether these are species or population differences is unknown. The degenerate EF-Iα primers used to survey the phytoseiids amplified two different elongation factor sequences with distinct amino acid translations, the putative EF-Iα and an unknown elongation factor. Variability within the 12S gene was used to develop population-specific primers for identifying the Mauritius phytoseiids in the event they are released in south Florida.

Which molecular markers for assessing which taxonomic level? The case study of the mite family Phytoseiidae (Acari: Mesostigmata)

“…The DNA sequence analyses show that two paralogue copies of EF1α were randomly amplified; two well‐supported clades were obtained, each containing specimens of the species. Such a result is in accordance with observations of various authors (Cruickshank, ; Dabert, ; Bowman and Hoy, ). Thus, as it has been impossible to target one of these copies for amplification, this marker was not considered for further analyses.…”

“…The nine DNA markers considered (four mitochondrial and five nuclear DNA fragments) were selected because they had already been used for assessing the phylogenetic relationships within Acari (Table 2). The mitochondrial DNA markers, COI mtDNA, CytB mtDNA, 12S rRNA and the nuclear fragment ITSS (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2) have been used successfully for molecular discrimination between Phytoseiidae species (Navajas et al, 1999;Yli-Mattila et al, 2000;Jeyaprakash and Hoy, 2002;Tixier et al, 2006aTixier et al, ,b, 2012Bowman and Hoy, 2012) and for assessing the phylogenetic relationships within two Phytoseiidae genera (Kanouh et al, 2010b;Tsolakis et al, 2012). The mitochondrial marker 16S rRNA has been used in phylogenetic studies of ticks, at the species level (Norris et al, 1996(Norris et al, , 1997Black and Roehrdanz, 1998), genus level (Crosbie et al, 1998;Mangold et al, 1998) and subfamily level (Black and Piesman, 1994;Black et al, 1997;Norris et al, 1999).…”

“…Molecular approaches have been used recently in mite phylogeny (Navajas and Fenton, ; De Rojas et al., ; Cruickshank, ; Lekveishvili and Klompen, ; Dabert, ; Domes et al., ; Klompen et al., ; Klimov and O'Connor, ; Dabert et al., ; Dowling and O'Connor, ; Kanouh et al., ; Roy et al., ; Schäffer et al., ; Tsolakis et al., ) but the panel of DNA fragments for assessing phylogenetic relationships at the supraspecific level is quite low compared to that for assessing species diagnosis (Navajas and Fenton, ; Cruickshank, ; Dabert, ). Barcoding approaches have been successfully developed for the family Phytoseiidae for species diagnostic purposes using 12S rDNA, CytB mtDNA, COI mtDNA and ITSS markers (Jeyaprakash and Hoy, , ; Tixier et al., ,b, , , , ; Okassa et al., , , ; Kanouh et al., Bowman and Hoy, ; Navia et al., ). Only two molecular studies of Phytoseiidae supraspecific levels have been carried out, both at the genus level ( Neoseiulus and Phytoseiulus ) (Kanouh et al., ; Tsolakis et al., ); they showed (i) incongruence between morphological theories and (ii) limits for the markers used (CytB mtDNA, 12S rDNA and ITSS) in assessing deeper phylogenetic relationships.…”

A review of the natural enemies of the red palm mite, Raoiella indica (Acari: Tenuipalpidae)

“…However, no other records are available of the association between these predators and R. indica since they were reported in 1958 and 1981, respectively. Since then, R. indica gained importance as an invasive pest in the Neotropics and surveys for natural enemies were conducted in several places of the world (Roda et al 2008;Peña et al 2009;Ramos et al 2010;Zannou et al 2010;Carrillo et al 2011b) including Mauritius and Kerala (Bowman 2010;Taylor et al 2011). Through these surveys, A. largoensis was identified as the most abundant predator and often as the only phytoseiid species associated with R. indica.…”

“…After R. indica gained importance as an invasive pest in the New World, surveys for natural enemies were conducted in Mauritius, India, Tanzania and Benin (Bowman 2010;Zannou et al 2010;Taylor et al 2011). These surveys did not encounter A. channabasavanni nor A. caudatus, but rather predatory mites identified as Amblyseius largoensis Muma.…”