Studies on some species of Indian Anopheles based on mitochondrial gene COII (Diptera: Culicidae: Anophelinae)

Abstract

Mosquitoes are the important members of biting Diptera and are widely distributed in almost all the regions of the world. Anopheles is the most studied genus of mosquitoes due to their great impact on human health. The mitochondrial COII gene has been widely used to identify and address phylogenetic uncertainties in insects at diverse taxonomic levels: among orders, within an order, within genus or species groups. The use of genetic markers has managed to recognise of a number of cryptic species and divergent evolutionary ancestries. In the current study, we analysed a partial sequence of 183 bp (approx.) of COII gene for four species of subfamily Anophelinae. The interspecific distance between these Anopheles species was calculated to be 9.88% while intraspecific distance between populations of same species was 0.65%.