Morphometric Analysis of Three Putative Species of Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) Species Complex From India

ABSTRACT The Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) is a pest of agricultural and horticultural crops. The B. tabaci species complex consists of 36 morphologically indistinguishable putative species. This study evaluates the morphometric variations of developmental stages, puparia, and adults in three putative species of B. tabaci occurring in India. The genetic identity of these studied populations were confirmed by mtCO1 analysis and revealed that the population from Amravati, Ludhiana, and Delhi were clustered with Asia I, Asia II1, and Asia II7 putative species, respectively. The morphological comparisons showed that fourth instar and adult of Asia-II1 was comparatively larger than Asia-I and Asia-II7. The positioning of sensorial cone on antennal segment 7 is much apart, and away from the sensorium in Asia-II1 while these are comparatively adjacent in Asia-I and Asia-II7 for both the sexes. The multivariate statistical analyses reveal that 31 measurements in puparia, 23 of male and 22 of...