Regional co-occurrence between distinct Bemisia tabaci species in Tunisia with new insights into the role of host plants

First report of the Sub-Saharan Africa 2 species of the Bemisia tabaci complex in the Southern France

“…In Portugal, Villanueva and colleagues submitted sequences (KC539830-31) from SSA2 B. tabaci collected on Ipomoea indica. In Tunisia, the SSA2 specimens were found on aubergine and datura (Laarif et al 2015), and in our survey in France they were found on soybean and black nightshade.…”

“…The specific identification of the B. tabaci lineages or species was based on three molecular approaches based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, which were previously described (Laarif et al 2015) and distinguish rapidly and reliably among the B. tabaci species most commonly found throughout the Mediterranean basin. The approaches were (i) amplification and sequencing of a species-specific mtCOI fragment using the primers C1-J-2195 (5' TTG ATT TTT TGG TCA TCC AGA AGT 3') and L2-N-3014 (5' TCC AAT GCA CTA ATC TGC CAT ATT A 3') (Fröhlich et al 1999); (ii) enzymatic digestion of the previously amplified mtCOI fragment (i.e., PCR-RFLP) by the endonucleases VspI or TaqI which gives restriction digestion patterns typical of MEAMI and Med specimens and/ or the endonuclease AluI; these distinguish between MEAMI, Med and other B. tabaci species, and between the Q1 (western Mediterranean) and Q2 (middle-eastern Mediterranean) populations of Med species; and (iii) 9 out of 12 microsatellite loci from Gauthier et al (2008) (i.e.…”

“…tabaci and not MEAMI-/Med-B. tabaci specimens (Laarif et al 2015). B. tabaci females were identified by means of at least two of the diagnostic approaches described above.…”

“…In recent years, MEAM1 was reported to have been displaced or even totally supplanted by Med (the western Mediterranean populations also called Q1 Med) B. tabaci species in many Mediterranean countries including Spain, Greece, France, Italy and Morocco (Simón et al 2007;Tsagkarakou et al 2007;Parrella et al 2012;Tahiri et al 2013;Gauthier et al 2014). Though not common, some Mediterranean regions still equally host both Med and MEAM1 (Laarif et al 2015), whereas in the eastern Mediterranean, for example in Cyprus, MEAM1 is dominant with Med (the middle-eastern Mediterranean populations also called Q2 Med) having a much more restricted distribution (Hadjistylli, unpublished data). Thus, the species composition and distribution of B. tabaci in the Mediterranean is dynamic in both space and time.…”

“…Since the B. tabaci complex consists of morphocryptic species, we used diagnostic and highly discriminatory molecular markers, including variation in nuclear microsatellites and mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI) through PCR-RFLP and DNA sequencing (Saleh et al 2012;Gauthier et al 2014;Laarif et al 2015). Here, we focus on the first report of the sub-Saharan Africa 2 (SSA2) species in Southern France and the possible implications of such a result in the context of invasion of the Mediterranean area by new B. tabaci species.…”