EXAMINATION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE ISRAELI POPULATION OF MATSUCOCCUS-JOSEPHI (HOMOPTERA, MATSUCOCCIDAE) USING RANDOM AMPLIFIED POLYMORPHIC DNA-POLYMERASE CHAIN-REACTION METHOD

Matsucoccus josephi Bodenheimer & Harpaz, a pernicious scale insect of Aleppo pine, Pinus halepensis Mill., plantations in Israel, is considered to be endemic. The recent discovery of the insect in the northeastern Mediterranean on brutia pine (P. brutia ssp. brutia), where it is present at low densities and damage is practically nil, suggests that the scale is not indigenous in Israel. The random amplified polymorphic DNA-polymerase chain reaction method was applied to examine the genetic similarity between the Israeli population of M. josephi and conspecific populations from Cyprus and Turkey, areas from which the scale could have spread to Israel. Application of statistical inference to the pooled data showed that the patterns of DNA fragments display a positive association between the Israeli and Cypriot populations and a negative association between the Israeli and the Turkish populations. Similarity indices show that maximal association occurs between the Israeli and the Cypriot populations. Our data suggest that M. josephi spread to Israel from Cyprus.