| Given the morphological similarity between the released Psyttalia (Opius) concolor and the wild Apulian ones, the biological control program against the olive fruit fly Bactrocera oleae is faced with problem of evaluating the efficacy of the release using the released reared endoparasitoid. A DNA molecular technique, the Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) was used to define eventual molecular markers and to assess the genetic variability between seven wild Apulian populations and one reared strain of P. concolor. A RAPD approach highlights a high genetic similarity among the populations from Puglia, suggesting a common evolutionary history. It also revealed a high genetic homogeneity between the reared and the Apulian samples, ruling out the... |
