USING CUTICULAR HYDROCARBON COMPOSITION TO ELUCIDATE PHYLOGENIES IN TICK POPULATIONS (ACARI, IXODIDAE)

Cuticular hydrocarbon composition is used to explain hypothetical phyl ogenies among sympatric and allopatric populations of Amblyomma cajenn ense, A. variegatum and Ixodes ricinus tick species. The method propos ed here uses a parsimony analysis of endemicity by disjunct biochemica l data (PAEDB) based in the pattern of cuticular hydrocarbons. The adv antage of our approach is that information contained in fragments that are not conserved in all the individuals of a population need not be discarded, and that only patterns of presence/absence are used. In suc h a way, PAEDB methodology provides a system which traces the pathway of a definite compound through populations, together with data of gene tic relationships among specimens.