The Study of Genetic divergent in the Leopard Moth (Zeuzera pyrina) in Iran

The use of molecular markers clearly reveals the diversity of pest populations, to take a convenient approaches of controlling them. In this study, the genetic diversity of Leopard moth (a borer pest of walnut trees) from different parts of Iran was studied by using primers of the COI and ITS regions. The sequences were aligned by the BioEdit program and analyzed by the PAUP program. For this propose, specimens of the pest from different geographical regions were collected and the COI and the ITS region were amplified by appropriate primers (four pairs) using PCR reaction and were subsequently sequenced. By following alignment of the COI sequences, 654 nucleotides positions were distinguished that 459 of them were constant, 149 positions were uninformative and 49 positions were informative. While for the ITS1 region, 504 positions were distinguished that 108 positions of them were constant, 378 positions were uninformative and 18 positions were informative. The constructed phylogenetic tree for the COI sequences showed that the population from Gonabad, Shahrood, Tabriz, Kerman and Karaj were classified in one group, representing minor differences among them. These minor differences among populations were also seen for the ITS1 sequences more clearly. The result showed, the population of different regions like Karaj, Shahriar, shahrood and Khorasan were very close in the constructed phylogenetic tree, while the population of Sarayan (South Khorasan province) and Gonabad (Razavi Khorasan) that are geographically contiguous were much distant from each other. Accordingly, it can be said that the differences among the leopard moth populations in Iran, are not affected by genetic divergence and the other factors, such as host diversity, have the major role.