Abstract
The red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier 1790) caused a high economic loos in date palm in gulf region especially in Saudi Arabia. Previous estimations of palm weevil haplotype diversity in Saudi Arabia was not satisfactory because of choice of marker and small sampling area. Assessing haplotype diversity using COI gene was found ineffective. The present study was carried out to estimate the haplotypes of R. ferrugineus using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences. Results showed 3 haplo-groups, among which, the haplotype UT9 was a singleton haplotype. The haplotypes UT16, UT2, UT6 UT10, UT14 and UT5 formed the second haplo-group whereas the remaining haplotypes were clustered as third group. K2P distance varied between 0 and 0.06 among the sequenced haplotypes and the maximum distance was recorded between two sets of haplotypes; viz; UT4 and UT3, UT4 and UT8. The overall distance of all the sequenced haplotypes were 0.02. Tajima’s neutrality value was < 0 indicating the potentiality for further haplotype diversification. Median joining haplotype network diagram reveals the presence of 10 haplotypes and most mutations were at 244th and 381st nucleotide positions. Overall, total number of mutations leading to the evolution of the documented 10 haplotypes was 34. Through genetic data, we have provided a strong evidence that there were multiple haplotypes of R. ferrugineus which were bound to expand its diversity. Higher nucleotide diversity and Tajima’s neutrality test values suggest that there were higher movement of infested palm trees, as desserts were natural barriers for movement of H. ferrugineus. The findings of this study will be useful for pest controlling agencies and to the workers involved in infested date palm quarantining.