Genetic diversity of cotton Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders) (Lepidoptera, Gelechiidae) population in inferred from mitochondrial COI sequences

The objective was to identify different haplotypes network of pink bollworm and their distribution in south India using the partial mitochondrial COI sequence of pink bollworm populations. Genetic diversity analysis exhibited the presence of 5 haplotypes in COI gene sequences, and among them, Hap_1 was the most common and present in 17 populations. Distributions of pairwise differences obtained with partial COI data from the overall populations were unimodal, suggesting population expansion. A significant neutrality test based on Tajima’s D, Fu and Li’s D and F test presented a haplotype network with multiple haplotypes. The acceptance of the neutrality test with significant positive values validated the theory of demographic expansion in cotton pink bollworm populations with respect to COI. The pink bollworm has a population genetic diversity among the investigated populations collected from south India.