Analysis of Thaumatotibia leucotreta (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae: Olethreutinae) mitochondrial genomes in the context of a recent host range expansion.

Background: The false codling moth (FCM), Thaumatotibia leucotreta (Meyrick, 1913), is a significant pest of various important economic crops and is a EU quarantine pest. In the last decade the pest has been reported on Rosa spp. In this study we determined whether this shift occurred within specific FCM populations across seven eastern sub-Saharan countries or whether the species opportunistically switches to this novel host as it presents itself.