Annals of the Entomological Society of America (2009) 102, 347-353

Raja Boudabous, Azzedine Bounamous, Damien Jouet, Jérôme Depaquit, Denis Augot, Hubert Ferté, Sélima Berchi, Arnaud Couloux, Michel Veuille and Hamouda Babba (2009)
Mitochondrial DNA differentiation between two closely related species, Phlebotomus (Paraphlebotomus) chabaudi and Phlebotomus (Paraphlebotomus) riouxi (Diptera: Psychodidae), based on direct sequencing and polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism
Annals of the Entomological Society of America 102 (3), 347-353
Abstract: Phlebotomus chabaudi Croset, Abonnenc and Rioux, 1970 and Phlebotomus riouxi Depaquit, Killick-Kendrick and Léger, 1998 (Diptera: Psychodidae) are closely related species of phlebotomine sand flies, the females of which are suspected of transmitting Leishmania killicki Rioux, Lanotte, and Pratlong 1986 in Tunisia. Although males of these species are distinguishable by the number and size of setae on the basal lobe of the coxite, morphologically differential characters between the females are blurred. A molecular study, based on 40 Algerian and Tunisian specimens, was conducted to distinguish females of these two species. Alignment of the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) sequences and their analysis by using neighbor-joining and maximum likelihood showed the separation of P. chabaudi and P. riouxi, irrespective of intraspecific variability. Both COI and cytochrome b have been tested as molecular identification tools. Single strand conformation polymorphism analysis did not distinguish these two species, whereas restriction fragment length polymorphism can be applied to identify P. chabaudi and P. riouxi for surveillance purposes.
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Link to article at publishers website
Database assignments for author(s): Jérôme Depaquit

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
identification/taxonomy
molecular biology - genes

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Phlebotomus chabaudi		Algeria
	Phlebotomus chabaudi		Tunisia
	Phlebotomus riouxi		Algeria
	Phlebotomus riouxi		Tunisia