Phosphoglucomutase polymorphism in Aedes phoeniciae Coluzzi & Sabatini of the Ae. mariae complex (Dipt., Culicidae)

Abstract

Different phosphoglucomutase (PGM) allozymes exist in the three sibling species of theAe. mariae complex. These enzyme variants appear to bedetermined at homologous loci by three codominant alleles designated as Pgm^A, Pgm^B andPgm^C. Some populations of Ae. zammitii (Theo.) and of Ae. mariae (Ed. & Et. Serg.) were found to be homozygous Pgm^A / Pgm^A and Pgm^B/Pgm^B, respectively. A laboratory population of Ae. phoeniciae (Coluzzi & Sabatini) was found to be polymorphic for the Pgm^Band the Pgm^C alleles, the latter being conspicuously more frequent. An electrophoretically marked Pgm^C strain of Ae. phoeniciae was easily obtained. This is expected to be useful in release experiments for the study of pre-copulatory isolating mechanisms between this and the other two siblings of the Ae. mariae complex.