Genetic Diversity among Rhynchophorus ferrugineus Populations from Saudi Arabia and India

The red palm weevil (R. ferrugineus), Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier) (Coleoptera, Curculionidae), is a great threat to the Saudi date palm Phoenix dactylifera L., which is the most important crop of Saudi Arabia. More than 400 date palm verities are grown with 25 of them classified as the most common. R. ferrugineus attacks coconut in India, therefore, the objective of this work was to assess possibility of classifinging indian R. ferrugineus as the source of infection in Saudi Arabia using PCR technique to determine the relationship between genetic variation of R. ferrugineus was determined for two populations: one from Saudi Arabia on date palm and the other from India on coconut. R. ferrugineus adults were collected from Alhasa (Saudi Arabia) and Goa (India) using insecticide free, food-baited pheromone (FerrolureTM) traps in both plantations. The weevils were subjected to genomic DNA extraction using molecular techniques to perform the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), subsequent transformation, and extraction of recombinant plasmids and cloning for nucleotide sequencing. Results revealed that sequence identity were identical (99-100%), whereas the two populations were 96-97% identical. The sequence showed that R. ferrugineus populations from Saudi Arabia and India were likely to be from different geographical regions; suggesting that R. ferrugineus population in Saudi Arabia is not from India.