Euseius stipulatus (Athias-Henriot)

Tixier, Marie-Stephane, Auger, Philippe, Migeon, Alain, Douin, Martial, Fossoud, Amandine, Navajas, Maria & Arabuli, Tea, 2021, Integrated taxonomy supports the identification of some species of Phytoseiidae (Acari: Mesostigmata) from Georgia, Acarologia 61 (4), pp. 824-844 : 828-829

Euseius stipulatus (Athias-Henriot)

Amblyseius stipulatus Athias-Henriot 1960: 294 .

Amblyseius (Amblyseius) stipulates, Ueckermann & Loots 1988: 110 .

Specimens examined. At Chokhatauri (42.0247° N, 42.2512° E): 9 ♀♀, 3 ♂♂ and 2 immatures on Citrus limon (L.) ( Rutaceae ), at Chokhatauri (1 km from Chokhatauri) (42.0233°

0.02

of Amblyseius eharai , Amblyseius largoensis and A. herbicolus from Genbank and Euseius stipulatus

(as an outgroup) obtained with COI mtDNA fragment.

N, 42.2598° E): 5 ♀♀ and 2 ♂♂ on Citrus sp. (Rutaceae) , at Kobuleti (1 km East Khala)

(41.7032° N, 41.8058° E): 8 ♀♀ and 3 ♂♂ on Citrus sp. (Rutaceae) , at Kobuleti (2 kms

from Esat Chakvi) (41.7135° N, 41.7556° E): 14 ♀♀ and 4 ♂♂ on Citrus sp. (Rutaceae) ,

at Kobuleti (Daba Chakvi) (41.7180° N, 41.7384° E): 8 ♀♀ and 1 ♂ and 1 immature on

Citrus sp. (Rutaceae) , at Kobuleti (Daba Chakvi) (41.7184° N, 41.7384° E): 9 ♀♀ and 1 ♂

on Citrus sp. (Rutaceae) , at Kobuleti (Khala) (41.7070° N, 41.7912° E): 8 ♀♀ and 2 ♂♂ on

Citrus sp. (Rutaceae) and 1 ♀, 2 ♂♂ and 4 immatures on Rubus sp. (Rosaceae) , Kobuleti

(Leghva) (41.8517° N, 41.9003° E): 8 ♀♀ on Citrus sp. (Rutaceae) , at Kobuleti (Mukhaestate)

(41.8413° N, 41.8629° E): 10 ♀♀ and 2 ♂♂ on Citrus sp. (Rutaceae) , at Kvareli (Eniseli)

(41.9988° N, 45.6702° E): 4 ♀♀ and 1 ♂ on Ulmus minor Miller (Ulmaceae) , at Ozurgeti

(Nasakirali) (41.9869° N, 42.0697° E): 1 ♀ on Carpinus betulus L. ( Betulaceae ) and 1 ♀ on

Malus orientalis Uglitzkich ex Iouzptchouk (Rosaceae) , at Ozurgeti (2 kms from Nagomari)

(42.0097° N, 42.1236° E): 4 ♀♀ and 1 ♂ on Rubus sp. (Rosaceae) , at Senaki (Sakharbedio)

(42.2858° N, 42.0381° E): 7 ♀♀ and 1 immature on Corylus avellana L. ( Betulaceae )

Previous records. Algeria, Azores Island, Canary Island, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy,

Iran, Madeira Islands, Montenegro, Morocco, Peru, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia,

Turkey, USA.

Remarks. Euseius stipulatus was the second most frequent species found (36%), with most of the specimens retrieved from citrus (78% of E. stipulatus specimens). This species occurs in the south of the West Palearctic region especially around the Mediterranean basin especially on citrus orchards ( Ferragut and Escudero 1997, Demite et al. 2021). Prior to this study only one species of Euseius , E. finlandicus (Oudemans) was known from Georgia. This is the first report of E. stipulatus for the Georgian mite fauna. Molecular sequences obtained (23 sequences for 12S rRNA, COI mtDNA markers and 22 sequences for CytB mtDNA fragment) were compared to those of the Euseius species reported from the West Palearctic region ( E. stipulatus , E. scutalis (Athias-Henriot) , E. finlandicus and E. gallicus Kreiter & Tixier ). For all markers studied here, the sequences of the Georgian specimens are similar to the reference sequence of E. stipulatus (Supplementary Tables S2a, b, c). However, two specimens collected on Citrus limon at Chokhatauri are differentiated from the others and from the E. stipulatus references, by a distance of 11.1% – 12.3% for the CytB mtDNA, 2.8% for the 12S rRNA and 8.4% for the COI mtDNA (Supplementary Table S2a, b, c). Such high genetic distances in mitochondrial DNA have been already observed at the intraspecific level (up to 21.7% within Typhlodromus (Anthoseius) rhenanoides Athias-Henriot for the CytB mtDNA and up to 10.5% within Neoseiulus californicus (McGregor) , for the COI mtDNA) ( Okassa et al. 2011 ; Tixier et al. 2019). Furthermore, the genetic distances between these two specimens and E. gallicus , E. finlandicus and E. scutalis are high for all the DNA fragments considered, showing that these two specimens clearly do not belong to these three species (Supplementary Table S2a, b, c). We thus provisionally conclude that these two specimens belong to E. stipulatus and suggest that molecular difference might reflect some adaptations and different biological traits (i.e. Tixier et al. 2010a), but biological trials would be required to test this hypothesis.