Abstract
The meadow spittlebug genus Philaenus (Auchenorrhyncha: Aphrophoridae) is known to display marked colour polymor- phism. This study presents the results of a karyotype analysis of P. arslani from Lebanon using conventional chromosome staining, C-banding, fluorescent banding using base-specific fluorochromes (CMA3 and DAPI) and AgNOR-staining. This species has 2n = 18 + neo-XY, and differs from P. spumarius both in the number of chromosomes and sex chromosome system. During meiosis, the neo-XY bivalent is clearly heteromorphic being the largest in the complement. Furthermore, sex chromosomes show marked differ- ences in C-banding pattern. The NOR-bearing chromosomes are the first and one of the middle-sized pairs of autosomes. NORs are G-C rich. Furthermore, some blocks of constitutive heterochromatin on the sex chromosomes are also G-C rich. All other C-bands are DAPI or DAPI/ CMA3 positive, thus containing A-T rich DNA. The significant difference in the karyotype of P. arslani and P. spumarius indicates chromosomal transformations during the evolution of the genus Philaenus.
Highlights
Until quite recently the genus Philaenus Stål, 1864 was considered to include three species only: the holarctic P. spumarius (Linnaeus, 1758), the Mediterranean P. signatus Melichar, 1896 and P. tesselatus Melichar, 1889
For the family Aphrophoridae, there is some data on the morphology of testes and ovaries, mainly the number of testicular follicles and ovarioles, for as few as 4 species, including P. spumarius
These results demonstrate considerable variability in the number of testicular follicles (12–35) and ovarioles (11–20) in the family
Summary
Until quite recently the genus Philaenus Stål, 1864 was considered to include three species only: the holarctic P. spumarius (Linnaeus, 1758), the Mediterranean P. signatus Melichar, 1896 and P. tesselatus Melichar, 1889. The latter, of unclear taxonomic status, is regarded as a synonym of P. spumarius (see Drosopoulos & Quartau, 2002). Recent studies increased the number of Philaenus species to 8 and all of the newly described species were discovered in the Mediterranean (Drosopoulos & Asche, 1991; Loukas & Drosopoulos, 1992; Abdul-Nour & Lahoud, 1995; Drosopoulos & Remane, 2000; Remane & Drosopoulos, 2001; Drosopoulos & Quartau, 2002) Of these species, P. spumarius, P. tesselatus, P. loukasi Drosopoulos and Asche, 1991 and P. arslani comprise the “spumarius” group, whereas P. tarifa Remane and Drosopoulos, 2001, P. signatus, P. italosignus Drosopoulos and Remane, 2000 and P. maghresignus Drosopoulos and Remane, 2000 belong to the “signatus” group, this division is still ambiguous (Loukas & Drosopoulos, 1992; Drosopoulos & Remane, 2000; Drosopoulos, 2003). Populations of this species were found in SE Turkey and in Iraq (see Drosopoulos, 2003)
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