Fourth International Bemisia Workshop International Whitefly Genomics Workshop
Genetic distance analysis among a large set of Bemisia tabaci samples
1 Keygene NV, Wageningen, The Netherlands. Correspondence: pbleeker@science.uva.nl
2 University of Amsterdam, Swammerdam Institute of Life Sciences, Dept. Plant Physiology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) infestation and the consequent transfer of virus particles is responsible for severe losses in cultivation of many crop species, all over the world. Conventional control of whitefly infestations has proven to be difficult and therefore we aim towards the development of whitefly resistance in crop species. By studying the plant-insect interaction we aim to establish the preference behavior of B. tabaci on certain crop species. It is known that within the species there is considerable genetic variation between populations. Within the scope of this project we set out to characterize a large set of whitefly populations from all over the world taken from different crops. B. tabaci was collected from several relevant locations (research stations of seed companies in the production areas of Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Brazil, Mexico, Israel, Turkey and Spain) and from different crop species (tomato, melon, pepper, squash, eggplant, oilseed rape). The amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) technique was used to investigate the extent and nature of intraspecific variability of 35 different samples and to determine whether these populations comprise of multiple biotypes. Also, we established whether B. tabaci samples collected in the production areas differ from our lab culture, which originates from the Research station for Floriculture in Aalsmeer (The Netherlands).