Using COI gene for identifying Aenasius bambawalei Hayat (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae), a parasitoid of Phenacoccus solenopsis Tinsley in Iran

Aenasius bambawalei Hayat (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Encyrtidae) is a solitary endoparasitoid of Phenacoccus solenopsis Tinsley. It was first found in Iran in 2011 following the introduction of its host, P. solenopsis, in the country in 2009. In order to confirm the identification of A. bambawalei which was based on classic taxonomy, the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene was sequenced in A. bambawalei samples collected from southern Iran. The parasitoids were retrieved from the specimens collected from four provinces of Iran, namely Khuzestan, Bushehr, Hormozgan and Fars. The polymerase chain reaction was performed according to standard protocols on the extracted DNA to amplify a fragment of the COI gene. Obtained 633 bp COI sequences were aligned with five A. bambawalei COI sequences available in GenBank from China and Pakistan and two other sequences as outgroups. In addition, a dendrogram was prepared and graphically depicted in a neighbor-joining tree. Our identifications were confirmed by the matches between our sequences and those of the GenBank database. Sequences displayed a BLAST hit and had a sequence similarity percentage of 99%-100% with the GenBank sequence assigned to the same species. The results of COI sequence analysis were in agreement with the morphological identifications. The findings of this study pointed out that COI gene sequence data is a precise and accurate tool for the rapid identification of A. bambawalei species.