The onion thrips, Thrips tabaci, is a serious global pest attacking many agricultural crops such as onion and Welsh onion. The thrips, assumed to originate in the Mediterranean region, has been reported for a long time in South Korea. According to worldwide molecular works, the species composes of three genetic lineages (LI, L2 and T) which related to reproductive mode (arrhenotoky vs. thelotoky). To understand the genetic diversity of T. tabaci in South Korea, we investigated genetic lineage and haplotype composition, using about 80 mitochondrial COI gene sequences (369bp) along with foreign sequences from GenBank and BOLD. The COI gene analysis shows that both of thelotokous L1 and arrhenotokous L2 population distribute in South Korea. Among 97 COI-haplotypes worldwide, only six haplotypes are found and thelotokous H1 dominantly distributes.
The migratory locust, Locusta migratoria, is one of the famous insect pests in the world. Although the species revealsseveral morphological variations, it is largely divided into two lineages, Southern (Africa, Southern Europe, Southern Asia,and Australian) and Northern (East Asia, Eurasian continent). In 2014, a large number of L. migratoria nymphs withred-brown color were suddenly occurred in the southern region (Haenam-gun, Jeollanam-do) of Korea. In this study, mitochondrialCOI sequences were analyzed to recognize the genetic identity of L. migratoria with nymph or adult samples collectedfrom 15 localities in Korea. The analysis results reveal that most of all samples are belonging to the Nothern lineage,and the Southern lineage was discovered only in Iksan and Chunju of Korea.