Phylogenetic analysis among some species of aphids (Homoptera: Aphididae) using DNA sequencing moleculartechnique

Abstract

The phylogeny of aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) has been studied by molecular technique for the first time in Kurdistan, this study comprises relationship between six species of Aphids collected from the leaves of different plants (Chrysanthemum, Oak, Almond, Pine, Asteraceae and Herbaceous) in many localities of Erbil governorate Kurdistan region-Iraq, started in May to July 2022. For understanding about aphid evolution, phylogenetic of aphid is crucial. However, neither the phylogenetic alterations of the Aphid taxa nor their comprehensive definition have been achieved. Therefore, a unique method has been developed in this study to examine COI gene sequencing and infer the relationships between the major aphid taxa. DNA was isolated, and a band of 550 bp of mt COI gene was amplified. Then the amplicons were sequenced. The part of the COI gene of the insect samples are alignment inside of NCBI GenBank by BLAST program, were used to compare our nucleotide have sequenced with other stored species of insect sequences. This research presented that studying phylogeny of aphid species through a sequencing technique can create a phylogenetic tree for the used species with reliable results. So, our species in Kurdistan region clustered in a monophyletic clade with published from most countries with high identic value (100%). The COI sequence of aphid species were submitted to GenBank with six accessions of OP355287 - OP355292. The composition of nucleotides of the sequence of COI gene was low of G-C base pairing. We were successful in showing that the mt-COI gene can be used as a molecular marker for the identification of related species, as shown by the similarities between the phylogenetic association created by COI