Mitochondrial COI Sequences to Identify Species of Primary and Secondary Parasitoid Wasps of Aphids in the Agricultural Environment in Japan

Abstract

The development of a method of the effective use of primary parasitoid wasps is necessary to control aphid populations in view of the negative impact of secondary parasitoids. Species identification using DNA sequences is a basic tool for the study of parasitoid wasps. In the present study, we used such an approach to identify primary and secondary parasitoid wasps of aphids that are frequently detected in the agricultural environment in Japan. We accordingly determined the DNA sequence of a barcoding region (mtCOI gene) in 179 individuals representing 11 species (two subfamilies) of primary parasitoids and eight species (five subfamilies) of secondary parasitoids, and these sequences have been deposited in the International Nucleotide Sequence Databases