The Distribution and Host Shifts of Cotton-Melon Aphids in Northern China

PLoS One. 2016 Mar 22;11(3):e0152103. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0152103. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Aphis gossypii Glover (Hemiptera: Aphididae) is a serious pest of cotton in northern China. A microsatellite analysis was used to characterize the genetic structure of A. gossypii populations from different geographic, host plant, and seasonal populations in 2014. Among 906 individuals, 507 multilocus genotypes were identified, with genotypic richness values of 0.07-1.00 for the populations. We observed moderate levels of genetic differentiation among geographic populations (FST = 0.103; 95% confidence interval: 0.065-0.145) and host plant populations (FST = 0.237; 95% confidence interval: 0.187-0.296). A Mantel test of isolation by distance revealed no significant correlations between Slatkin's linearized FST and the natural logarithm of geographic distance. A Bayesian analysis of population genetic structures identified three clusters. An analysis of molecular variance revealed significant differences among the three clusters (F = 0.26596, P < 0.0001), among seasons (F = 0.04244, P = 0.00381), and among host populations (F = 0.12975, P = 0.0029). Thus, the A. gossypii populations in northern China exhibit considerable genotypic diversity. Additionally, our findings indicated that the 31 analyzed populations could be classified as one of three host biotypes (i.e., cotton, cucumber, and pomegranate biotypes). There were also clear seasonal effects on population genetic structure diversity among aphids collected from Anyang.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Aphids / genetics*
  • Bayes Theorem
  • China
  • Genetic Variation / genetics*
  • Genetics, Population / methods
  • Gossypium / genetics
  • Microsatellite Repeats / genetics
  • Plants
  • Seasons

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the Transgenic Major Projects program of the Ministry of Science and Technology, China (2016ZX08011-002) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31572015). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.