Bemisia tabaci is a cryptic whitefly-species complex that includes some of the most damaging pests and plant-virus vectors of a diverse range of food and fibre crops worldwide. We combine experimental evidence of: (i) differences in reproductive compatibility, (ii) hybrid verification using a specific nuclear DNA marker and hybrid fertility confirmation and (iii) high-throughput sequencing-derived mitogenomes, to show that the "Mediterranean" (MED) B. tabaci comprises at least two distinct biological species; the globally invasive MED from the Mediterranean Basin and the "African silver-leafing" (ASL) from sub-Saharan Africa, which has no associated invasion records. We demonstrate that, contrary to its common name, the "ASL" does not induce squash silver-leafing symptoms and show that species delimitation based on the widely applied 3.5% partial mtCOI gene sequence divergence threshold produces discordant results, depending on the mtCOI region selected. Of the 292 published mtCOI sequences from MED/ASL groups, 158 (54%) are low quality and/or potential pseudogenes. We demonstrate fundamental deficiencies in delimiting cryptic B. tabaci species, based solely on partial sequences of a mitochondrial barcoding gene. We advocate an integrative approach to reveal the true species richness within cryptic species complexes, which is integral to the deployment of effective pest and disease management strategies.

中文翻译：

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一种在烟粉虱中发现隐性物种的综合方法。

烟粉虱（Bemisia tabaci）是一种隐密的粉虱物种复合体，其中包括全球范围内各种粮食和纤维作物中一些最具破坏性的害虫和植物病毒载体。我们结合以下实验证据：（i）生殖相容性的差异，（ii）使用特定核DNA标记和杂交育性确认的杂交验证，以及（iii）高通量测序衍生的有丝分裂基因组，以表明“地中海”（MED） ）烟粉虱至少包含两个不同的生物物种; 来自地中海盆地的全球侵入性MED和来自撒哈拉以南非洲的“非洲银叶”（ASL），都没有相关的入侵记录。我们证明，与通用名称相反，“ ASL” 不会引起南瓜生银的症状，并且表明基于广泛应用的3.5％mtCOI基因部分序列差异阈值的物种划分会产生不一致的结果，具体取决于所选的mtCOI区域。在来自MED / ASL组的292条已发布的mtCOI序列中，有158条（54％）是低质量和/或潜在的假基因。我们仅在基于线粒体条形码基因的部分序列中，证明在界定隐性烟粉虱物种方面存在根本缺陷。我们提倡采用综合方法来揭示隐蔽物种复合物中的真实物种丰富度，这对于有效的病虫害管理策略的部署是必不可少的。在来自MED / ASL组的292条已发布的mtCOI序列中，有158条（54％）是低质量和/或潜在的假基因。我们仅在基于线粒体条形码基因的部分序列中，证明在界定隐性烟粉虱物种方面存在根本缺陷。我们提倡采用综合方法来揭示隐蔽物种复合物中的真实物种丰富度，这对于有效的病虫害管理策略的部署是必不可少的。在来自MED / ASL组的292条已发布的mtCOI序列中，有158条（54％）是低质量和/或潜在的假基因。我们仅在基于线粒体条形码基因的部分序列中，证明在界定隐性烟粉虱物种方面存在根本缺陷。我们提倡采用综合方法来揭示隐蔽物种复合物中的真实物种丰富度，这对于有效的病虫害管理策略的部署是必不可少的。