Diversity of red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus Oliv. (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: studies on the phenotypic and DNA barcodes

Molecular characterization and phylogenetic relationships among Rhynchophorus sp. haplotypes in Makkah Al-Mukarramah Region-KSA

“…1 Collection spots of red palm weevils were collected from three governorates in the Western region of KSA, namely Jeddah, Makkah, and Taif. The figure shows collection spots in the MENA region of other studies of Sukirno et al (2020) and El-Mergawy et al (2020). Same haplotypes have the same color.…”

“…haplotypes, based on cytochrome oxidase subunit I, in the MENA region as well as in other regions of the world. These haplotypes were published by El-Mergawy et al (2011) , e.g., H1, H3-H6 and H8, and Sukirno et al (2020) , e.g., S1. The haplotypes of El-Mergawy et al (2011) were deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) as accession no.…”

“…The haplotypes of El-Mergawy et al (2011) were deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) as accession no. GU581582 for H1, GU581548 for H3, GU581545 for H4, GU581539 for H5, GU581526 for H6 and GU581519 for H8, while that of Sukirno et al (2020) was deposited in the Barcode of Life Database System (BOLD Systems http://boldsystems.org/ ) under accession numbers RPWSA001–16 for S1, while had analogue sequence in the NCBI under accession no. MH016278.…”

“…However, it is a challenge to discriminate insect species at the morphological level in addition to the huge number of cryptic species making the global species count uncertain ( Scheffers et al, 2012 ). Several genetic markers have been used to investigate the diversity of RPW in the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin, including Saudi Arabia, of which is the cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene ( Al-Ayied et al, 2006 , El-Mergawy et al, 2011 , Rugman-Jones et al, 2013 , Sadder et al, 2015 , Sabir et al, 2019 , Sukirno et al, 2020 ). DNA barcoding, originally generated by Hebert et al .…”

“…The study aims to characterize RPW haplotypes in the Western region of Saudi Arabia based on COI gene at DNA and amino acids (AAs) levels compared with the published haplotypes either in Saudi Arabia or in the MENA region ( El-Mergawy et al, 2011 , Sukirno et al, 2020 ). This study also deciphers some evolutionary dynamics of the insect towards its smart decisions of in-time and in-site migration.…”