Population genetic structure and molecular diversity of Leucinodes orbonalis based on mitochondrial COI gene sequences

Leucinodes orbonalis is a destructive pest found throughout eggplant cultivating fields of Tamil Nadu, India. The genetic diversity and its population structure were investigated in this pest using mitochondria' cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene sequences from 20 populations of L. orbonalis collected from various agro-climatic conditions. The study indicated almost no genetic diversity among various populations. The COI nucleotide sequence based haplotype analysis also revealed no significant genetic variation among various populations. However, haplotype network analysis with three clades was nearly matching with the structure of phylogenetic analysis that showed geographical separations induced distribution of some genetic variation. The PCA and nMDS Shephard's plot analyses were also illustrated that the populations sampled were nearly matched with phylogenetic tree and haplotype network. This study on phylogeographical structure using the mitochondria' COI sequence diversity of L. orbonalis therefore suggested presence of few genetically distinct populations due to some specific habitat requirements.