Molecular genetics of Lucilia cuprina Wiedemann and Lucilia sericata (Meigen) (Diptera: Calliphoridae)

The greenbottle flies Lucilia cuprina and L. sericata are morphologically similar and genetically closely related. Based on morphological characters, L. cuprina has been divided into two subspecies: L. cuprina cuprina, found in the Neotropical (and southern Nearctic) and Oriental regions, and L. cuprina dorsalis, found in sub-Saharan Africa and Australasia. Recent genetic work found that L. cuprina mtDNA haplotypes from Hawaii and Taiwan were more closely related to L. sericata haplotypes than to L. cuprina from Australia and Africa. This lack of reciprocal monophyly raised the possibility that there has been at least some hybridization between L. cuprina and L. sericata. We have sampled additional specimens of both L. cuprina and L. sericata from the continental U.S., and obtained DNA sequence data for portions of the mtDNA genes COI, COII, and ND4, as well as partial sequences for the nuclear 28S rRNA gene. We find that all flies morphologically identified as L. cuprina from with the published range of L. cuprina cuprina form a distinct monophyletic clade with high bootstrap support. This clade is sister to a monophyletic L.sericata, also with high bootstrap support. All other published L. cuprina sequences form a distinctly separate monophyletic clade.