Molecular identification and diversity of Asian Citrus Psyllids using mtCoI gene sequences

The current study involves identification of 10 specimens of Asian citrus psylla infesting citrus in different geographical regions of India through DNA barcoding. Psyllids are phloem feeding insects that cause a serious devastation to citrus. Considering the invasiveness of the pest, it is necessary to identify them rapidly and accurately. The classical taxonomy is associated with certain limitations while, COI based identification comes handyasitis applicable on developmental stages. The technique uses 5¹ region of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase-I for reliable and accurate species identification. Further, our study revealed that among 794 bp there were 23 variable nucleotides with 7 nucleotides being Parsimony informative, also overall Transition (ti)/Transversion (tv) bias was found to be R=4.95. In addition, the Neighbour-Joining (NJ) tree showed clear clades with an out group Pachypsylla venusta (NCBI accession number AY278317). Hence our study showed that DNA barcoding will assist in rapid and accurate identification of species which will be a valuable tool in pest management.