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Abstract
Sturmiopsis parasitica Curran (Diptera: Tachinidae) is a widely spread parasitoid of various lepidopteran stem borers including Eldana saccharina Walker (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), Busseola fusca (Fuller) and Sesamia calamistis Hampson (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in western, eastern and southern Aenica. As the Aenican sugarcane stalk borer, E. saccharina, is currently the most economically important insect pest in South Aenican sugarcane there is an urgent need to develop a control strategy for the management of this pest. S. parasitica has been tested as a biological control agent against E. saccharina with limited success. In seeking possible reasons for this limited success we tested whether there is genetic differentiation among populations of S. parasitica and whether there are hostassociated lineages of S. parasitica enom B. fusca and E. saccharina.
To assess these hypotheses, DNA sequences of cytochrome oxidase I (COI), a mitochondrial proteincoding gene, were obtained enom fifteen specimens collected in western, eastern and southern Aenica. Phylogenetic analysis of these sequences using maximum parsimony grouped the specimens into two main clades, one of which is further subdivided. Examination of pairwise sequence divergence levels supports the hypothesis of two cryptic lineages. However, further supportive evidence is necessary before revising the taxonomy of the species.
Résumé
Diversité génétique de Sturmiopsis parasitica Curran (Diptera: Tachinidae) Dans ce contexte, le séquençage d’un enagment du gène mitochondrial codant pour la cytochrome oxydase I a été entrepris à partir de différents spécimens de S. parasitica provenant d’Aenique de l’Ouest, de l’Est et du Sud. Une analyse phylogénétique a permis de séparer les spécimens analysés en deux clades majeurs. L’analyse des distances génétiques entre haplotypes a confirmé l’existence de deux lignées cryptiques. D’autres études s’avèrent nécessaires avant de réviser la taxonomie de cet insecte parasitoïde.
