First Report ofReticulitermes flavipes(Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) in Italy

Abstract

The first record of Reticuliterms flavipes (Kol l?r) (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) in Europe was in 1837, in Vienna, Austria, after infested plants im ported from the U.S. were discovered in the green house of the Sch?nbrunn Palace (Kollar 1837). In 1924, R. flavipes was found on the French Atlan tic coast and initially described as a new species, R. santonensis (Feytaud 1924). The synonymy of R. santonensis with R. flavipes was eventually confirmed by mitochondrial DNA analyses (Aus tin et al. 2002). In France, R. flavipes is currently distributed in an area extending from the Gi ronde region up to Paris and Normandy, and causes structural damage to buildings and trees (Lohou et al. 1997). During the 1930s, R. flavipes was discovered in wooden forepoles of channel construction in the steam heating district of Hamburg, Germany, where populations were sup ported by the favorable microclimate (Weidner 1937). Today, populations of R. flavipes remain es tablished in Hamburg, and cause damage to buildings and trees (Hertel & Plarre 2006). In Oct 2008, a subterranean termite infesta tion was discovered by a homeowner in a de tached house and adjacent garden situated in a residential district built in the 1970s in the out skirts of Olgiate Olona (Varese), in northern Italy. Termite workers and soldiers were observed and collected during a structural inspection in Nov 2008. Specimens are maintained in the Marini termite collection at the University of Bologna. Molecular analysis was used to determine the termite species, which were preserved in 100% ethanol prior to DNA extraction. A 684-bp region of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit II gene and a 491-bp region of the mitochondrial 16S ribosomal RNA gene were amplified by PCR. Sequencing was performed by Macrogen Inc. (Seoul, South Korea). Closely related sequences were identified from GenBank using the BLAST network service (Altschul et al. 1990) at NCBI. For both genes, nucleotide sequences were identical in the 2 workers (GenBank Accession GU070788 and GU070789). Sequences from the Olgiate Olona house corresponded (97-100% cov erage, 100% similarity for COII sequence; 92 100% coverage, 100% similarity for 16S sequence) to GenBank sequences of R. flavipes from North America and France and of R. arenincola Goell ner (Table 1). This latter species appears to be identical to R. flavipes based on the DNA se quences obtained so far.