Intraspecific genetic diversity of the oak gall wasp Andricus lucidus (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) populations in Anatolia

Authors: SERAP MUTUN

Abstract: Intraspecific genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships of Andricus lucidus haplotypes from Turkey were studied by PCR-RFLP analysis. A total of 26 haplotypes were detected among 144 individuals collected from 9 populations. The estimated average haplotype and nucleotide diversity within populations were 0.8089 and 0.115542, respectively. Nucleotide divergence estimates among the analyzed oak gall wasp populations ranged between 0.012% and 7.3%. Dendrograms indicated that there was a relationship between the geographical distribution of haplotypes and their clustering. AMOVA analysis for estimation of the partitioning of genetic differentiation at all different hierarchical levels was statistically significant. Analysis of variance revealed that the highest genetic variance (61.21%) was present within populations and a significant partitioning of variance (26.85%) was found among groups. Overall, the present study indicates that the oak gall wasp haplotypes found in different populations from Turkey have a significant amount of genetic diversity and form geographically significant groupings.

Keywords: Andricus lucidus, gall wasp, mitochondrial DNA, PCR-RFLP, phylogeography, Turkey

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