Merodon

Preradović, Jelena, Andrić, Andrijana, Radenković, Snežana, Zorić, Ljiljana Šašić, Pérez-Bañón, Celeste, Campoy, Andrés & Vujić, Ante, 2018, Pupal stages of three species of the phytophagous genus Merodon Meigen (Diptera: Syrphidae), Zootaxa 4420 (2), pp. 229-242 : 232

Identification of Merodon puparia

BLAST search results reVealed 99% COI sequence identity (corresponding to a difference of one nucleotide) between puparium P2 (640 base pairs, bp) and a sequence of M. avidus deposited in GenBank under accession number FM206517 . The query coVerage was 97%. HoweVer, BLAST search did not help in resolVing the species of the P1 puparium. We aligned and compared the P1 pupal sequence (634bp) with sequences resolVed from adult Merodon specimens deposited in the FSUNS sequence database and concluded that the puparium P1 belonged to M. aureus since the P1 sequence was identical to the sequences of nine adult specimens of M. aureus collected in Đerdap National Park ( Table 1 ) and differed by only one mutational step from a tenth adult specimen of M. aureus from the same locality.

Genetic identification of the two other hoVerfly puparia found on the ground close to O. umbellatum plants in August 2015, namely P 3 and P 4, was unsuccessful because the sequencing failed to obtain DNA from a hoVerfly species. Instead, we obtained sequences of two hymenopterans. Thus, sequencing analysis reVealed parasitoidism by wasps of the Hymenopteran families Diapriidae and Ichneumonidae. NeVertheless, based on morphological characters, puparium P3 (parasitoidized by Diapriidae) was identified as M. avidus and puparium P4 (parasitoidized by Ichneumonidae) as M. aureus.

As a summary, our genetic results and morphological comparisons reVealed that the puparia found in the ground near bulbs of O. umbellatum and on the ground close to these plants in the Đerdap National Park belong to M. aureus (P1 and P4) and to M. avidus (P2, P3 and P5) ( Table 1 ).