Morphological characterization and molecular mediated genetic variation of thief ant (Solenopsis molesta Say, Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

The genetic variation in thief ant Solenopsis molesta(Say) populations from various geographic locations were determined by analyzing the mitochondrial DNA sequences of cytochrome oxidase I (COI). Thief ants from nine states were identified to species using morphologic characteristics. Their DNA was extracted and COI amplified using primers Lep-F1 (forward) and Lep-R1 (reverse) and sequenced. The contigs uploaded to www.Phylogeny.fr for analysis, produced phylogenetic tree which displayed the variation in genetic makeup and this variation corresponds to the morphological identification. Ants collected from New York, Indiana and one location in Nebraska grouped as S. molesta validiuscula and another with ants from Louisiana identified as S. carolinensis and the third group comprised of ants from South Dakota, Washington, New Jersey Tennessee, Kansas and two other locations in Nebraska identified as S. molesta molesta. DNA barcodes were generated from 600bp COI sequences of thief ants collected from the nine states were and submitted to GenBank (accession # HM179641 to HM179653)