Although Aleurocanthus spiniferus (Quaintance) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) is a well known insect pest of tea plants, little information is available about its genetic structure and diversity. The present study used microsatellite markers to assess the genetic structure and diversity of this species on tea plants in China. For this purpose, 193 individuals from ten natural populations were analyzed using ten microsatellite markers. Our results indicated that the average number of alleles (A) across populations was 35.6, and all observed heterozygosities (HO) were greater than 0.7, indicating an excess of heterozygosity and a relatively high level of genetic diversity among populations, and the number of private alleles per population ranged from 3 to 26. Pairwise FST analysis suggested that the number of genetic differentiation events was moderate (0.05<FST<0.15) between most of the populations. Mantel test indicated that genetic distance was not correlated to geographic distance. UPGMA dendrogram revealed that GX formed one cluster, separate from the other populations, and five clusters were generally formed according to STRUCTURE and GENELAND analyses. Molecular variance analysis revealed that more than 95% of variation was attributed to among samples within populations. High levels of migration rate were detected among five groups and migration rate was generally symmetrical in group pairs. Bottleneck test indicated that most populations had experienced a population bottleneck.
Keywords: Aleurocanthus spiniferus; Bottleneck effect; Genetic diversity; Microsatellite marker; Population genetic structure.
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