RAPD variation within and among species of Melittobia westwood (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae)

The genus Melittobia Westwood comprises several species of microparasitoids and only two of them are know to occur in Brazil up to now: M. australica Girault and M. hawaiiensis Perkins. Nevertheless, the differentiation between these two species using traditional taxonomy is very difficult. In the present study, we used random amplified polymorphic DNA chain reaction (RAPD-PCR) to test for its ability to discriminate between these two species and to examine the genetic variation among the studied populations of M. australica. Most of the generated fragments were species-specific, occurring in all individuals of one species and absent in the individuals of the other species demonstrating the appropriateness of such technique to distinguish between both of the Melittobia species occurring in Brazil. RAPD-PCR also demonstrated low variability among different populations of M. australica, which may be due to a founder effect and/or high dispersion capacity of these populations. Genetic distances within (D = 1.19-3.54%) and among populations (D = 1.93-5.28%) presented very low values, reflecting the reduced genetic variation that exists among populations of M. australica.