Abstract
We conducted a comparative population genetic analysis of levels of genetic variation and its geographical structuring in three closely related species of grasshopper that co-occur in the Mediterranean Basin: Calliptamus italicus, C. barbarus and C. wattenwylianus. In the western part of their distributions 5 populations of C. italicus, 13 of C. barbarus and 10 of C. wattenwylianus were sampled. Bootstrap re-sampling of populations and microsatellite loci within each species indicated a lower level of genetic diversity and higher level of genetic differentiation in C. barbarus, which is less of an outbreak pest species than either of the other Calliptamus species studied. This may be due to lower effective sizes of non-outbreak populations and/or lower gene flow among them.
Highlights
Locusts and grasshoppers of the family Acrididae (Orthoptera) are among the most devastating pests of pastures and crops in many parts of the World (Steedman, 1988; Latchininsky et al, 2011)
Males disperse more than females in most Orthopteran species (e.g. Bailey et al, 2007; Ortego et al, 2011) male-based sampling is not likely to have biased the inferred patterns in genetic structure because the maximum distances dispersed by the species studied are likely to be much shorter than the distances between the populations studied
During spring and summer 2008, we collected samples from populations in France, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Algeria and Uzbekistan. This sampling regime covers most of the distribution of C. wattenwylianus and the south-western parts of the distribution ranges of C. italicus and C. barbarus
Summary
Locusts and grasshoppers of the family Acrididae (Orthoptera) are among the most devastating pests of pastures and crops in many parts of the World (Steedman, 1988; Latchininsky et al, 2011). The same fine-scale microsatellite study highlighted lower levels of genetic diversity in C. barbarus than in C. italicus and C. wattenwylianus.
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