EVIDENCE THROUGH CROSSMATING EXPERIMENTS OF A SPECIES COMPLEX IN ANOPHELES-PSEUDOPUNCTIPENNIS SENSU-LATO - A PRIMARY MALARIA VECTOR OF THE AMERICAN CONTINENT

Crossmating experiments were conducted to determine if postmating repr oductive barriers are involved in the maintenance of genetic divergenc e among populations of Anopheles pseudopunctipennis sensu lato, a prim ary malaria vector of the American continent. Reciprocal crosses were conducted between colony and wild strains from Mexico, Bolivia, and Pe ru. Hybridization experiments revealed unidirectional male/female hybr id sterility in crosses between Mexican females and South American mal es. The data presented provide the first evidence that genetic differe nces exist among geographic strains of An. pseudopunctipennis in neotr opical America. There is a consistent pattern suggesting the presence of at least two allopatric sibling species. One species occurs in cent ral Mexico, the other in the South American Andean Cordillera.