ENZYMATIC VARIABILITY AND PHYLOGENETIC RELATEDNESS AMONG TRIATOMA-INFESTANS, T-PLATENSIS, T-DELPONTEI AND T-RUBROVARIA

Four congeneric species of triatomine bugs, Triatoma platensis, T. del pontei, T. rubrovaria and T. infestans, were examined by multilocus en zyme electrophoresis. These four species are distributed sympatrically throughout Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, and were found to be clos ely related according to their known ethological, ecological and morph ological traits. In order to evaluate previous hypotheses concerning t he phylogenetic branching within this group, isoenzyme patterns were s ubmitted to classical phenetic and genetic clustering analysis. Result s are discussed in the light of occasional natural gene flow between T . infestans and T. platensis, and indicate that ecology is the main fa ctor explaining both their present status and their morphological diff erentiation.