Research Article |
Corresponding author: María de Lourdes Ramírez-Ahuja ( lulu.ahuja@hotmail.com ) Academic editor: Norman Johnson
© 2022 Kenzy I. Peña-Carrillo, Antonio Rodríguez-Rivas, Sara G. Díaz-Ramos, Mayra A. Gómez-Govea, Patricia Zambrano-Robledo, Iram P. Rodríguez-Sánchez, María de Lourdes Ramírez-Ahuja.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Peña-Carrillo KI, Rodríguez-Rivas A, Díaz-Ramos SG, Gómez-Govea MA, Zambrano-Robledo P, Rodríguez-Sánchez IP, Ramírez-Ahuja ML (2022) First record of Tamarixia dahlsteni Zuparko (Hymenoptera, Eulophidae), a parasitoid of Trioza eugeniae Froggatt (Hemiptera, Triozidae) and current status of the Tamarixia species in Mexico. ZooKeys 1129: 73-83. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1129.90577
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Parasitic wasps of the genus Tamarixia represent important biological control agents of members of the true bug group, Psylloidea, and are host specific; therefore, they can be used to control insect pests. In this study we report, for the first time, the presence of the parasitoid Tamarixia dahlsteni in Mexico and its mitochondrial barcode region of the cytochrome oxidase I gene (COI). We also review the species diversity of the genus Tamarixia in Mexico.
Biological control, COI, eugenia psyllid, parasitic wasps
Biological control agents represent a sustainable pest management option that help to maintain pest populations under accepted levels (
In Mexico, five species (both native and exotic) of Tamarixia are found: Tamarixia aguacatensis Yefremova (
Currently, DNA barcodes are important tools for species identification with potential for bio-surveillance programs in agriculture (
We obtained parasitoids emerged from nymphs of Trioza eugeniae feeding on Syzygium paniculatum, collected in an urban area from Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico [Colonia Las Palomas, Tesistán (20.7890, -103.4831) and Club Deportivo UdeG (20.7793, -103.6075)]. The nymphs were taken to the laboratory (HR 70%, T 25 ± 2 °C) and were placed into Petri dishes until the parasitoids emerged. The parasitoids were placed in 96% ethanol for morphological and molecular determination.
According to
Genomic DNA was non-destructively isolated according to the protocol described by
We employed the resulting COI sequences to reconstruct the phylogenetic relations of the emerged parasitoids. For this objective, we included COI sequences of all available species of the genus Tamarixia, which were downloaded from the BOLD Systems database and GenBank. All sequences were aligned in Mesquite ver. 3.70 (
From the collected material for this study, seven females and seven males of the genus Tamarixia emerged. They agreed with the diagnosis of T. dahlsteni: the entire ventral surface of the gaster was yellow, and in the dorsal part the yellow color extending to, or slightly beyond, the apex of the second tergite (Fig.
Our sequence alignment contained 893 bp, and included sequences of the species Tamarixia drukyulensis Yefremova and Yegorenkova, Tamarixia dryi Waterston, Tamarixia pronomus Walker, Tamarixia pubescens Nees, T. radiata, T. triozae and Tamarixia upis Walker, obtained from public databases and those of T. dahlsteni and T. schina generated in this study. In the phylogenetic reconstruction, sequences of each species were clustered in individual subclades with high support (ultrabootstrap values >95) (Fig.
Phylogenetic tree showing the genetic relations between species of the genus Tamarixia. Aprostocetus cerricola was included as an outgroup and Tamarixia dahlsteni is highlighted in gray color. Bootstrap branch support ≥ 95% is shown above branches; samples in bold represent sequences generated in this study, while samples with an asterisk (*) were downloaded from the BOLD Systems database. The rest of the samples were downloaded from GenBank. BOLD Systems specimen records and GenBank accession numbers are shown before the species name.
According to the literature, seven of the 54 existing species of Tamarixia are reported from the Nearctic and Neotropical regions (
The host for T. dahlsteni is the eugenia psyllid Trioza eugeniae. Both species were found in Australia associated with the ornamental tree Syzygium paniculatum, and in 1988 the psyllid was found for the first time in California, USA. The damage caused by the psyllid on S. paniculatum trees prompted a search for its natural enemies in Australia. As a result, the wasp T. dahlsteni was identified as the primary parasitoid of T. eugeniae and was later imported to the USA to control eugenia psyllid populations (
In biological research, names of species are essential to ensure comparable results when working with model organisms (
As already mentioned, psyllids are main hosts for the Tamarixia species and because of their possible broad dietary tolerance some species might migrate and disperse to new geographic regions (
In agriculture, species identification protocols based on DNA represent powerful tools for the success of early detection programs, or monitoring of species (
Besides reporting the presence of Tamarixia dahlsteni in Mexico, we also provided barcodes that may be employed as a reference for further monitoring programs or studies about this economically important group of wasps. Moreover, our phylogenetic analysis suggests the need for a deeper and wider taxonomic revision of the genus.
The authors are grateful to Dave Burns and Laurie Jo Elliot for providing English editing of the manuscript.