Molecular Identification and Biological Study of Greater Wax Moth Galleria mellonella L.
By
Kazhal Tofiq Ameen
The greater wax moth Galleria mellonella L. has a wide geographic distribution and lives naturally in beehives, causing serious problems for the apiaries on feeding, the larvae of this insect destroy the wax combs by secrete silken threads on these combs thus hampering the movement of individuals (honeybee) within the hive.
The present study was carried out at the Department of Biology, College of Science to identify the insect by molecular technique and to investigate the effect of old wax and pollen on the biology of the greater wax moth Galleria mellonella L.
The identification of greater wax moth was conducted by extracting genomic DNA. The DNA extracted from four individuals of insect (5 adults, 5 larvae) with (Jena Bioscience Animal DNA preparation Kit), by using LCO1490 and HCO2198 which is universal primers to amplify the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI) gene. The results got from the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool indicated that the highest query sequence was 100% identical to Galleria mellonella L.
All sequencing result was sent to the international gene bank (IGB) to be checked and registered, The IGB received all sequencing result of four individual, then IGB sent firstly submitted a code number for each sequence as (Bankit 2244816, Bankit 2244885, Bankit 2244908 and Bankit 2244925) respectively. The accession number for each sequence was available in August 2019 as (MN 187961, MN 187962, MN187963 and MN187954) respectively.
The results of biology study showed that eggs were white creamy in color, laid in cluster form, but at the end of oviposition, the eggs were laid singly. The old wax and pollen showed highly significant effect on the measurement of eggs.
The Galleria mellonella L. has six instars, the morphometric of the larval stage on old wax and pollen grain noticed a highly significant difference in length at all larval instar except in the sixth instar. The larval length was longer when they fed on pollen. The mean length and width of the head capsule significantly different only in the first instar. The duration of total larval period showed non-significant differences between both diets.
The result revealed that the length of female pupa is longer when they fed as larvae on old wax. Larval diet significantly affected on Pre-pupation period which spend more period on old wax, while at the pupal stage the duration similar to each other with two tested diets. The longest developmental duration recorded were between 48-61 days with mean of 53.70 days when larvae fed on old wax.
The adult length was longer when they fed as larvae on old wax. The highest number of eggs/females was 1419 eggs recorded with the females developed from larvae reared on old wax.