Genetic analysis of Marten's semi-slug (Parmarion martensi) in Thailand using cytochrome C oxidase subunit I Gene

Abstract

Marten's semi-slug (Parmarion martensi) is an important terrestrial gastropod species in agriculture and public health. It is a major economic pest and a vector of the parasite named Angiostrongylus cantonensis (rat lungworm), which can cause eosinophilic meningitis in humans. To understand the genetic data of these semi-slugs, 66 samples of P. martensi from Thailand were used for amplifying COI nucleotides. Our results found that high haplotype diversity (h=0.9120) and low nucleotide diversity (π=0.0218) values were presented, as well as a star-like grouping pattern in the nested clade analysis, suggested that there was a populational expansionof semi-slugs after a bottleneck effect in the past. The results showed mixture of populations in the nested clade analysis, i.e., a non-relationship between genetic distance and geographical distance of Marten's semi-slug populations (R²=-0.00001). Moreover, significant genetic variation among individuals within each population (p-value = 0.0000), including non-significant semi-slug genetic variation of two groups of populations in SAMOVA analysis (pvalue= 0.11046), suggested that the trend of genetic distance of P. martensi in Thai populations does not depend on geographical distance