Cuticular hydrocarbons in Kurdistan populations of Anopheles maculipennis complex (Diptera: Culicidae)

Anopheles maculipennis Meigen, 1818 (Diptera: Culicidae) is an important vector of malaria and a number of arboviruses in Eurasia. The complex includes 12 sibling species in Palaearctic, of which 8 siblings occur in Iran. We studied three populations of An. maculipennis in Kurdistan province, Iran, which were geographically isolated and were belonged to different siblings. Specimens were collected from locations A (35° 14' N, 47° 29' E) & B (35° 22' N, 47° 26' E) within 14 Km of a fertile plain and location C (35° 55' N, 45° 48' E), 165 Km away from A and B, isolated by Mt. Zagros as a natural barrier. Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) of the wax layer were analyzed to see how different siblings and populations could be. Legs were extracted by surface immersion in n-hexane and n-pentadecane was used as an internal standard. Analysis was made by FID-GC and a blend of alkanes was additionally used to estimate the length of hydrocarbon chains. Forty-nine hydrocarbon peaks were totally observed from C ₁₂-C ₄₀, but only 4 peaks (RTs 17.65, 17.75, 19.59, 22.34) were discriminative for C population (C ₃₀, C ₃₁, C ₃₄, C ₃₈). A and B populations, on the other side, indicated an exclusive CHC peak at RT 22.53 (C ₄₀). No qualitative difference was detected between CHCs of A and B populations. Our findings refer to the two different siblings in A-B and C locations which in turn show a sympatric and allopatric nature for A-B and C populations respectively.