Analysis of the Population Genetic Structure of Anopheles kleini of the Far East of Russia Based on the Variability of the BOLD Fragment of the COI Mitochondrial Gene

Mosquitoes of the Anopheles hyrcanus species complex are important vectors of malaria and a number of vector-borne diseases in humans. One species of this complex, An. kleini, inhabits the Russian Far East, forming a zone of sympatry with another species of this species complex, An. sinensis, in the extreme south of the region. We present for the first time a characterization of mitochondrial and nuclear variation of the northern An. kleini populations on the basis of analysis of the polymorphism of the BOLD fragment of the mitochondrial COI gene and the nuclear ribosomal repeat (ITS) fragment. A comparative analysis of our data with data from the GenBank database shows that variation of the ITS fragment is species-specific to all species of the genus Anopheles, enabling unambiguous species identification using this marker, while interspecific hybridization events influence population variation of the mitochondrial markers. We identified two groups of mitochondrial haplotypes of An. kleini. The first group of haplotypes is species-specific to An. kleini and is detected mainly in the northern part of the range of the species; the second group of haplotypes is detected mainly in the southern part of the Russian Far East and is characteristic for both An. kleini and An. sinensis.