The booklouse, Liposcelis bostrychophila, is a worldwide pest of stored products. For decades, only thelytokous parthenogenetic reproduction was documented in L. bostrychophila. Male L. bostrychophila were first found in Hawaii in 2002. In 2009, a sexual strain was found in Arizona. We examined the morphology of both males and females of the Arizona strain and compared the Arizona sexual strain with the Hawaii sexual strain and the parthenogenetic strains of L. bostrychophila. The sexual and parthenogenetic strains show some differences in eye morphology. To examine the relationship between sexual and asexual lineages, we sequenced the mitochondrial 12S and 16S ribosomal RNA genes of males and females from the Arizona strain. Phylogenetic analyses of L. bostrychophila individuals revealed that: 1) the sexually reproducing colony found in Arizona contains two closely related mitochondrial DNA haplotypes--one present in only females and the other in both males and females; and 2) the Arizona sexual strain was most closely related to a parthenogenetic strain in Illinois. We detected Rickettsia in all of the parthenogenetic individuals we checked but not in any Arizona sexual individuals. Further evidence is required to establish whether the presence of Rickettsia is linked to asexual reproduction in Liposcelis.

Crop Research Institute Drnovská 507 161 06 Prague 6 Czech Republic

Department of Biological Sciences Illinois State University Normal Illinois 61790 4120 USA

Department of Biology University of Victoria Victoria British Columbia V8P 5C2 Canada

Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology Oklahoma State University OK 74078 USA

Department of Entomology College of Agriculture and Biotechnology China Agricultural University Beijing 100193 China

GeneCology Research Centre Faculty of Science Health Education and Engineering University of the Sunshine Coast Maroochydore DC Queensland 4556 Australia

Kimron Veterinary Institute P O Box 12 Bet Dagan 50250 Israel

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Fragmentation in mitochondrial genomes in relation to elevated sequence divergence and extreme rearrangements

The Highly Divergent Mitochondrial Genomes Indicate That the Booklouse, Liposcelis bostrychophila (Psocoptera: Liposcelididae) Is a Cryptic Species

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