The genetic variability of 27 individuals from two distinct populations (Northeast and Central Brazil) of the grasshopper Schistocerca pallens (Thunberg) and eight isolates of its natural pathogen, the fungus Metarhizium flavoviride Gams & Rozsypal, was investigated using RAPD analysis. For the grasshoppers, ten different 10-mer oligonucleotide primers of arbitrary sequence were selected for analysis, resulting in 79 scorable binary characters. The program RAPDDIP applied to S. pallens revealed nucleotide diversity of 2.3 and 2.2% for the populations from Rio Grande do Norte (Northeast Brazil) and Federal District (Central Brazil), respectively. These values indicate the presence of high genetic variability within these populations. Conversely, the value for nucleotide divergence (0.004) showed almost no distinction between the two populations. In the case of M. flavoviride, thirty-one 10-mer oligonucleotide primers of arbitrary sequence were selected for analysis, producing 388 scorable binary characters. A dendrogram obtained for M. flavoviride, using the program NTSYS, revealed high homogeneity (similarity ≥79.5%) among the 8 isolates analyzed. The Brazilian isolates, all from the same geographical area and host (S. pallens), were even more homogeneous (≥98.3%).
Insecta; genetic variability; entomopathogenic fungus; biological control; molecular markers
