What Can Integrated Analysis of Morphological and Genetic Data Still Reveal about the Anastrepha fraterculus (Diptera: Tephritidae) Cryptic Species Complex?

Leandro Prezotto,Vicente Hernández-Ortiz,André Perondini,Denise Selivon,Daniel Frías

doi:10.3390/insects10110408

Abstract

The South American fruit fly Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann) is a complex of cryptic species, the so-called “Anastrepha fraterculus complex”, for which eight morphotypes are currently recognized. A previous analysis of ITS1 in samples of the Anastrepha fraterculus complex, while revealing high distinctiveness among samples from different localities of South America, Central America, and Mexico, no direct association was made between sequence type and morphotype. In the present report, a correlated analysis of morphometry and ITS1 data involved individuals belonging to the same population samples. Although showing a low level of intra-populational nucleotide variability, the ITS1 analysis indicated numerous inter-population sequence type variants. Morphotypes identified by morphometric analysis based on female wing shape were highly concordant with ITS1 genetic data. The correlation of genetic divergence and morphological differences among the tested samples gives strong evidence of a robust dataset, thereby indicating the existence of various taxonomic species within the A. fraterculus complex. However, the data revealed genetic and morphological variations in some regions, suggesting that further analysis is still required for some geographic regions.

Highlights

The genus Anastrepha Schiner is endemic to the Neotropics and has been found to occur from the southern United States to northern Argentina and the Caribbean Islands [1]
The first non-morphological evidence indicating that different species could be involved in the Anastrepha fraterculus complex came from a karyotypic analyses of specimens collected in Brazil and Insects 2019, 10, 408; doi:10.3390/insects10110408
A generalized Procrustes analysis using the MorphoJ program was conducted by overlapping landmark configurations that remove variations caused by differences in translation, orientation, and Analyses of ITS1 Sequences size into a common coordinate system [47]

Summary

Introduction

The genus Anastrepha Schiner is endemic to the Neotropics and has been found to occur from the southern United States to northern Argentina and the Caribbean Islands [1]. 250 valid species with 21 species groups that differ in terms of morphology [2,3,4]. Among the 34 species of the “fraterculus group”, some are considered economically damaging, such as Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann). In the 1940s, variations in wing pattern along its wide geographic distribution, similar to that of the genus, lead to the assumption that cryptic species might be involved [5,6,7]. Samples from the nominal Anastrepha fraterculus populations have been analyzed for other biological parameters and significant data on the existence of different species have been accumulated over time. The first non-morphological evidence indicating that different species could be involved in the Anastrepha fraterculus complex came from a karyotypic analyses of specimens collected in Brazil and Insects 2019, 10, 408; doi:10.3390/insects10110408 www.mdpi.com/journal/insects

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