Wing geometry in the populations of Diaphorina citri (Hemiptera: Liviidae) in Iran and USA: an evidence for incongruence of molecular and morphometric data

Abstract

Asian citrus psyllid (ACP), Diaphorina citri Kuwayama, is one of the most important citrus pests in the world.In addition to direct feeding damages, it also transmits the greening-disease pathogen. In order to improve understanding of geographic populations of ACP related to the mtCOI Haplotype-1, geometric morphometric was used to compare variations between populations of ACP in Iran and USA (Florida). The ACP populations were collected from the Iranian cities of Jiroft and Chabahar and Florida (USA) in 2014. 150 pecimens from five ACP populations (30 adult females per population) were randomly selected and analysed using ANOVA and MANOVA.The results indicate that wing-shape (Wilk.s lambda = 0.0910, F = 5.89, P < 0.0001) and wing-size (F = 61.41, df =4, P <.0001) were different between Iranian and USA populations. This study also showed incongruence betweenmorphometric and molecular data in the studied populations of D. citri from Iran and USA. The observed differences are probably due to genetic rather than environmental factors because of 1) significant multivariate differences in shape even after removing size variation and 2) significant correlation between geographic and morphometric distance matrices.

Keywords

• citrus greening disease
• hlb
• intraspecific variation