Aphis mizzou Lagos and Puttler

Lagos, Doris M., Puttler, Benjamin, Voegtlin, David J. & Giordano, Rosanna, 2012, A new species of Aphis (Hemiptera: Aphididae) in Missouri on St. John’s Wort, Hypericum kalmianum, and re-description of Aphis hyperici Monell, Zootaxa 3478, pp. 81-92 : 84-87

publication ID	https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.210015
DOI	https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5632079
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/BC5087D4-FFF5-FFBF-61F5-5921CDBCFDDF
treatment provided by	Plazi
scientific name	Aphis mizzou Lagos and Puttler
status	sp. nov.

Treatment

Aphis mizzou Lagos and Puttler sp.n.

Diagnosis. A. mizzou is considered to be a new species because the antennae of both the apterous and alate viviparae are five-segmented and the ultimate rostral segment has no accessory setae. The dorsal abdomen has sclerites and the cuticle is strongly reticulate. The secondary sensoria of alatae are arranged in a single row. Both apterous and winged viviparous females are black in life.

Apterous viviparae (n= 18 specimens) ( Figure 1 View FIGURE 1 ). Color in life: Head, thorax and abdomen black dusted with white wax. Femora black, and tibiae yellowish ( Figure 8 View FIGURE 8 A). Color on slide and morphological characters: Head: Dark. Antennal tubercles undeveloped. Antenna five-segmented, shorter than body. Antennal segments: first, second, apical part of fourth and fifth dusky; the other segments pale. Secondary sensoria absent on all antennal segments. Rostrum extending to mesocoxae, ultimate rostral segment without accessory setae. Thorax: Coxae dark and trochanters dusky. Femora dark except at the base. Tibiae pale, darkening near distal tip. Tarsi dusky. Abdomen: Cauda dark, tongue-shaped, with 6–11 setae. Siphunculi dark, lightly imbricated, without flange. Marginal sclerites pale. Pre-siphuncular and post-siphuncular sclerites absent. Marginal tubercles present on abdominal segments I and VII, absent from II, III, and IV. Dorsum of abdomen with wide transverse sclerites on VII and VIII, short band on VI, and scattered smaller sclerites on other abdominal segments. Abdominal tergite VIII with 2 setae. Sub-genital plate dusky, complete, with 1–3 anterior setae. Cuticle strongly reticulated. For morphometric data see Table 2 View TABLE 2 .

Alate viviparae (n= 20 specimens) ( Figure 2 View FIGURE 2 ). Color in life: Head, thorax and abdomen black covered dusted with white wax. Wings yellowish, transparent. Femora black, and tibiae yellowish ( Figure 8 View FIGURE 8 A). Color on slide and morphological characters: Head: Dark. Antennal tubercles undeveloped. Antenna five-segmented. shorter than body. All antennal segments dark. Antennal segments III and IV with secondary sensoria arranged in a single row. Rostrum does not reach the metacoxae, ultimate rostral segment without accessory setae. Thorax: Coxae and trochanters dark. Femora dark except at the base. Tibiae pale, darkening near distal tip. Tarsi dusky or dark. Abdomen: Cauda dark finger shaped, with 7–12 setae. Siphunculi dark, imbricated without flange. Marginal sclerites dark. Pre-siphuncular sclerite absent. Post-siphuncular sclerite dark. Marginal tubercles present on abdominal segments I and VII, and sometimes on II, III, and/or IV. Dorsal abdomen with transverse sclerites on VI, and VIII. Abdominal tergite VIII with 2 setae. Sub-genital plate dark, complete, with 2–4 setae on anterior part.

Holotype apterous viviparous female (specimen number 511,101). Body 1.78, URS 0.09, accessory setae absent, antennal segments: III 0.28, IV 0.11, B 0.10, Pt 0.12, LHIII 0.007, hind tibiae 0.62, HT2 0.12, tubercle I 0.028, tubercle VII 0.030, siphunculi 0.08, cauda 0.20, with 8 setae, abdominal tergite VIII with 2 setae, subgenital plate with 2 setae on anterior margin.

Biology: Biological observations were first made on A. mizzou in 2005. The new species was not observed again until 2008 and was subsequently found in 2009, 2010 and 2011. It was not found on other Hypericum species growing on the campus of the University of Missouri, such as H. calycinum and a hybrid species H. “Hidcote”.

Etymology: This species is named after the nickname for the Columbia campus of the University of Missouri, “ mizzou ”.

Type material: Holotype: Apterous viviparous female, 511,101, Univ. of Missouri-Columbia, 38.9073°N – 92.2805°W, Boone County, MO, 12.v.2009, on Hypericum kalmianum, B. Puttler , in Illinois Natural History Survey ( INHS) Insect Collection, Urbana.

Paratypes: 1 alate viviparae, 4 apterous viviparae, 510,273–510,274, Univ. of Missouri-Columbia, 38.9073°N – 92.2805°W, Boone County, MO, 5.v.2008, on H. kalmianum, B. Puttler ; 1 alate vivipara, 5 apterous viviparous, 510354, 510355, 511,099–511,100, Univ. of Missouri-Columbia, 38.9073°N – 92.2805°W, Boone County, MO, 12.v.2009, on H. kalmianum, B. Puttler. 14 alate viviparae, 511,102–511,113, Univ. of Missouri-Columbia, 38.9073°N – 92.2805°W, Boone County, MO, 20.iv.2009, on H. kalmianum, B. Puttler ; 9 alate viviparae, 7 apterous vivipara, 511,114–511,122, Univ. of Missouri-Columbia, 38.9073°N – 92.2805°W, Boone County, MO, 20.v.2009, on H. kalmianum, B. Puttler. Paratypes are deposited at the INHS Insect Collection and W. R. Enns Entomology Museum, University of Missouri.

Discussion: All collections of this species have been made in early spring and initially it was thought that A. mizzou might be the fundatrix morph of A. hyperici . However the color, in life, of both aphids observed on the same host plant, H. kalmianum , and at the same time in the field is different. Both species are dusted with wax but A. hyperici has a reddish body color while A. mizzou is black ( Figure 8 View FIGURE 8 ). It also is found primarily on new terminal growth and stems rather than on the underside of leaves that is the usual feeding site for A. hyperici . Further research needs to be focus on where this species spends the remainder of the year since its populations disappear from Hypericum by early summer. In contrast A. hyperici can be found on its host plant throughout the growing season.

Phylogenetic analysis: An analysis was performed using EF1-α sequences alone and combined with COI, to test the relationship of A. hypericiphaga to A. hyperici and A. mizzou ( A. hypericiphaga sequence was obtained from GenBank, accession number EU358915 View Materials ). Pairwise distances for COI and EF1-α were calculated using the Kimura 2 Parameter distance model ( Kimura 1980) in PAUP 4.0b10 ( Swofford 2001). PAUP was used to generate Neighbor-joining trees to graphically represent the distance between sequences.

A total of 50 sequences for COI and EF 1-α were used in this study and are available in GenBank under the following accession numbers JQ860251 View Materials to JQ860275 View Materials for COI and JQ860276 View Materials to JQ860298 View Materials for EF 1-α ( Table 1 View TABLE 1 ).

Using COI, pairwise sequence divergence between A. hyperici and A. mizzou is 3.2%. Foottit et al. (2008) cite numerous examples with intraspecific sequence divergence of less than 2% in Aphis and other genera. Values of pairwise distances for the nuclear gene EF1-α are more conserved ( Table 3 View TABLE 3 ). Pairwise comparisons using this latter gene between the morphologically closely related species A. hyperici and A. mizzou is 0.8%, and of these two species to A. hypericiphaga is 2.9% and 3.3% respectively. Interestingly, A. hypericiphaga appears to be more closely related to A. gossypii (0.9% EF1-α) than to the native American species included in this study ( Figs. 3 View FIGURE 3 and 4 View FIGURE 4 ). Graphical representation of the Kimura 2 parameter distances of concatenated genes for all taxa, with the exception of A. hypericiphaga , indicates that A. hyperici and A. mizzou share the same clade as A. pulchella and A. fabae ( Fig. 4 View FIGURE 4 ).