Comparative study on the evolutionary lineage of two grey weevils, Myllocerus undatus marshall and Myllocerus viridanus (fabricius) (coleoptera: Curculonidae) by the partial sequencing of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase igene

The paper describes the evolutionary lineage of the grey weevil Myllocerus undatus Marshall and Myllocerus viridanus (Fabricius)(Coleoptera:Curculionidae) using their partial mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene sequencing. The study revealed that the species discrimination becomes much easier by the process of DNA barcoding.The partial sequencing of cytochrome oxidase I gene of M.undatus revealed 657–658 bp sequences The GenBank deposition indicated the novel and first-time records of M.undatus and was provided with accession numbers KU871374, MG021104, MG021105 and MG407181. The nucleotide sequences with each accession number showed 99% identity with each other whereas the protein product showed 100% identity. The protein product of M.undatus (MG021104) shows 100%identity to Myllocerus undecimpustulatus (KP851146) reported from Ludhiana, Punjab. Partial sequencing of mitochondrial COI gene of M.viridanus yielded a 630 bp product by PCR amplification. Protein blast of mitochondrial partial CO1 sequence of M.undatus and M.viridanus showed 98.57% identity with 3 amino acid substitutions. N-J tree of both the species was constructed and evolutionary analyses were done in MEGA7.