Author(s)

Rodrigo Fernando de Souza^1*, Fernando Kamimura Cocchi², Cíntia Martins³, Maria Santina de Castro Morini¹, Odair Correa Bueno²

¹Núcleo de Ciências Ambientais, Universidade de Mogi das Cruzes, Mogi das Cruzes, Brasil.
²Centro de Estudos de Insetos Sociais, Instituto de Biociências, Campus Rio Claro, Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho, Rio Claro, Brasil.
³Campus Ministro Reis Veloso, Universidade Federal do Piauí, Parnaíba, Brasil.

The genus Solenopsis includes more than 100 species in the New World. When introduced, some species cause serious harm to the native wildlife and agriculture. Two forms of social organization are known in the genus, namely, monogyne and polygyne. Here, we present the genetic profile of a Solenopsis invicta Buren 1972 colony recorded in the central region of the city of São Paulo, São Paulo state, Brazil (23°;33'37.18"S; 46°;42'48.66"W) to describe allele diversity. Eight microsatellite loci were used for the analysis of 30 worker ants. The results show the presence of seven alleles genotyped at the same microsatellite locus. Because this is an unusual finding, all of the alleles were sequenced, and surprisingly, an eighth allele was identified. These data suggest that the intracolonial genetic profile of fire ants must be investigated more frequently because there may be unexpected, albeit unknown, genetic patterns for S. invicta that can help inform better control and management programs.

Fire Ants, Intracolonial, Microsatellites, Alleles

Souza, R. , Cocchi, F. , Martins, C. , Morini, M. and Bueno, O. (2016) Characterization of Allele Diversity in a Microsatellite Locus: A Registry for Solenopsis invicta. Advances in Entomology, 4, 32-36. doi: 10.4236/ae.2016.41005.