Use of a Nuclear Marker to Assess Population Structure in Hessian Fly (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae)

Abstract

Mayetiola destructor (Say) (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae), the Hessian fly, is distributed across most of the wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)-growing areas of the world and can cause significant yield losses in wheat production. Native to the Old World, Hessian fly reportedly came to the United States in a single introduction during the Revolutionary War and has since spread across North America. Using a nuclear marker, the population structure of North American Hessian fly was examined with regard to collections from the Old World. White intron 1 (wint1) showed insignificant recombination within collections and a large number of informative characters, allowing its use as a phylogenetic marker. Thirty-three alleles of wint1 were identified. Population structure analyses divided the collections into four populations: Middle East, Old World I, Old World II, and New World. More variation was found within populations than between populations, indicating that gene flow exists between local areas. However, shared ancestral characteristics resulted in mixing of Hessian fly collections into more than one population as revealed by the population structure reconstruction. North American and Spanish collections were a mixture of the Old and New World populations. With the sharing of ancestral characters as well as wint1 alleles, this study indicates that the North American lineage may actually be associated to an unsampled location, perhaps northern Europe. If the single introduction hypothesis were correct, then both lineages would have to have been present at the time of introduction.

Population genetic structure and intraspecific genetic distance of Periplaneta americana (Blattodea: Blattidae) based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA markers

“…Intraspecific diversity studies, using both mitochondrial and nuclear markers, enable us to evaluate the population genetic structure and genetic diversity of a species (Ferronato et al, ; Johnson, Morton, Schemerhorn, & Shukle, ; Roman, ; Wang et al, ). Although P. americana is an urban pest worldwide, there are limited studies on the genetic variety and population structure of P. americana .…”

The evolution of Hessian fly from the Old World to the New World: Evidence from molecular markers

“…The microsatellite and SNP findings corroborate the evidence from 12S mitochondrial rRNA (Johnson et al ., ) and the white locus (Johnson et al ., ) that North American Hessian fly populations are genetically polymorphic, as if the species does not tolerate inbreeding and there is a minimum founding population size necessary for successful establishment. It appears unlikely that a single gravid female could found a new population.…”

“…Johnson et al . () noted that Hessian fly is a minor pest of wheat in northern Europe and therefore is not currently investigated there, making it infeasible to obtain samples of German or English populations from local researchers. Thus, it is not known if northern European populations would more closely match North American populations than the Spanish or Kazakh populations do.…”

“…Two previous molecular surveys of Hessian fly have employed mitochondrial 12S rRNA haplotype (Johnson et al ., ) and the first intron of the Hessian fly white locus, a nuclear gene (Johnson et al ., ). The 1st study found 3 of the 7 worldwide mitochondrial haplotypes in North America, with haplotypes 2 and 3 most frequent in the northeastern and north‐central United States and adjacent Canada, and haplotype 1 elsewhere.…”

“…Therefore, we used both types of markers to analyze population structure and linkage disequilibrium from diverse Hessian fly samples, including many of the same populations sampled by Johnson et al . (, ). These samples come primarily from the United States and Canada, but also include single populations from New Zealand, Spain, Kazakhstan, Syria, and Israel.…”