author(s)
Shahanaz and Vinay K Kalia

abstract
Pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella is one of the most important pests of cotton. Since 2015 onwards this pest is causing havoc in the Bt cotton growing regions of India. To find out genetic variation in the seven populations of P. gossypiella, present study was carried out using the nuclear protein coding gene, elongation factor 1 alpha (EF-1α). Phylogeographical pattern clearly indicates that there is low genetic variation among the P. gossypiella populations. Nucleotide diversity and overall mean distances were 0.0063 and 0.004. Negative Tajima’s D value indicates that the presence of low frequency polymorphism reflected as population expansion. Neighbor joining tree constructed based on the EF-1α sequences generated two clusters separating populations Lab, Dharwad, New Delhi in to one cluster, while Adilabad, Guntur, Gujrat-manglor, akola in to another cluster.