EXAMINATION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE ISRAELI POPULATION OF MATSUCOCCUS-JOSEPHI (HOMOPTERA, MATSUCOCCIDAE) USING RANDOM AMPLIFIED POLYMORPHIC DNA-POLYMERASE CHAIN-REACTION METHOD

Matsucoccus josephi Bodenheimer & Harpaz, a pernicious scale insect of Aleppo pine, Pinus halepensis Mill., plantations in Israel, is consid ered to be endemic. The recent discovery of the insect in the northeas tern Mediterranean on brutia pine (P. brutia ssp. brutia), where it is present at low densities and damage is practically nil, suggests that the scale is not indigenous in Israel. The random amplified polymorph ic DNA-polymerase chain reaction method was applied to examine the gen etic similarity between the Israeli population of M. josephi and consp ecific populations from Cyprus and Turkey, areas from which the scale could have spread to Israel. Application of statistical inference to t he pooled data showed that the patterns of DNA fragments display a pos itive association between the Israeli and Cypriot populations and a ne gative association between the Israeli and the Turkish populations. Si milarity indices show that maximal association occurs between the Isra eli and the Cypriot populations. Our data suggest that M. josephi spre ad to Israel from Cyprus.