What Can Integrated Analysis of Morphological and Genetic Data Still Reveal about the (Diptera: Tephritidae) Cryptic Species Complex?

The South American fruit fly (Wiedemann) is a complex of cryptic species, the so-called " complex", for which eight morphotypes are currently recognized. A previous analysis of ITS1 in samples of the complex, while revealing high distinctiveness among samples from different localities of South America, Central America, and Mexico, no direct association was made between sequence type and morphotype. In the present report, a correlated analysis of morphometry and ITS1 data involved individuals belonging to the same population samples.

Morphology of immature stages in the neotropical nonfrugivorous Tephritinae fruit fly species Rachiptera limbata Bigot (Diptera: Tephritidae) on Baccharis linearis (R. et Pav.) (Asteraceae).

Rachiptera limbata Bigot develops on Baccharis linearis (R. et Pav.) in the areas around Santiago, Chile.

The phylogeny of the gene, from the "lower" naked structural genes to "higher" non transcriptional genes.

Within the nuclear eukaryotic genome there are two different information areas. One of these zones corresponds to coding DNA in which "structural genes" or "lower genes" can be found. On the other hand, disperse in the genome, there is the non-coding DNA, where redundant DNA can be found.