Spatial genetic variation in South Indian larval populations of legume pod borer, Maruca vitrata Geyer (Lepidoptera: Crambidae)

Abstract

The Legume pod borer <em>Maruca vitrata</em> (Fabricius) is a serious pest in most common pulses affecting their yield. In the present investigation, genetic diversity among larval population of <em>Maruca vitrata </em>from five locations of India was assessed using 23 RAPD primes and 6 SSR primers. RAPD primers produced 364 (98.9% polymorphism) polymorphic alleles with the mean number of 18.2 alleles/primer while SSR primers produced 45 polymorphic alleles with 68% polymorphism. The mean number of alleles detected per primer ranged from 4 to 46 and 5 to 12 with RAPD and SSR primers, respectively in different larval samples. Dendrogram constructed using similarity index values for RAPD and SSR primers differentiated the larval samples. In all three types of Maruca larval samples, Polymorphism information content (PIC) value observed for RAPD primers ranged from 0.019 (OPC 08) to 0.375 (OPAF 12). Similarly, SSR primers showed PIC value of 0.061 (C32008^E) to 0.781 (C3393^E,1) irrespective of larval samples.