Morphological and genetic identification of the three pine pests of the genus Tomicus (Coleoptera, Scolytidae) in Europe

1. Morphological characters were elaborated and part of the mitochondrial COI gene was sequenced in order to facilitate the determination of the three European pine bark beetles Tomicus piniperda, T. destruens and T. minor. The sequence information also provided the first information on the phylogenetic and phylogeographical relationships of these species. 2. Three hair rows were found on the antennal club of T. destruens between the second and third suture. Tomicus piniperda had only one row. Three different hair types were detected on the elytra" two hair types were found on T. piniperda, whereas the third hair type was only detected on the elytra of T. destruens. 3. The COI region (445 bp) revealed high sequence divergence among T. destruens, T. piniperda and T. minor. The three species proved to be monophyletic species with 16.98-19.23% sequence divergence. A phylogenetic approach placed T. minor and T. destruens as sister taxa, which contradicts the morphological findings. 4. European populations of T. piniperda shared two haplotypes, indicating a homogenous distribution of the genotypes. In the American populations only one of these European haplotypes was found. The Greek, Italian and Spanish T. destruens populations revealed three population-specific haplotypes, indicating restricted gene flow. 5. Species-specific primers were designed to allow a rapid and definitive determination of the two sibling Tomicus species by PCR.