Abstract:
Onion thrips,
Thrips tabaci
Lindeman, is a broadly distributed pest that attac
ks a wide
range of crops. To investigate the intra-specific m
orphometric variation and the genetic
diversity of the species in Iran, four populations
from tobacco plus 18 populations from
onion were studied in some 17 provinces of Iran. Mo
rphological analysis, using principal
components and canonical discriminant analyses indi
cated that the populations living on
tobacco were significantly different from those liv
ing on onion. DNA sequence data for
the COI gene was obtained for all the populations i
ncluding some other 21 population
sequences retrieved from the GenBank database. Maxi
mum parsimony analyses revealed
the distinct clades of
T. tabaci
on tobacco and on onion with the exception of one
population collected from tobacco grown in Golestan
Province. The results were identical
for maximum likelihood and neighbor-joining analyse
s. Both molecular and
morphometric analyses show heterogenecity of
T. tabaci
populations representing at least
two different biotypes on tobacco and on onion.
Keywords:
Molecular analysis, Morphometrics, Onion,
Thrips tabaci
, Tobacco
