Abstract: Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) is a species complex containing over 31 cryptic species, some of which are worldwide invasive insect pests. At present, two invasive cryptic species and 13 indigenous cryptic species have been recorded from China. Rapid and efficient methods for identifying cryptic species are important for investigating the population abundance of various cryptic species in the field and development of management strategies. However, apart from the method of sequencing mtCOI and gene sequence BLAST search, an efficient method for indentifying multiple species is still lacking at present. In this study, we adopted the PCR-RFLP technique, using one or more of the five restriction enzymes, namely TaqI, VspI, Van91I, NcoI and FokI, to identify nine whitefly cryptic species from China. The results showed that two cryptic species MEAM1 and China 1 could be identified through digestion with only TaqI, two cryptic species MED and Asia 1 could be identified through sequential digestion with TaqI+NcoI, two cryptic species Asia II 3 and Asia II 9 could be identified through sequential digestion with TaqI+Van91I, and three cryptic species Asia II 1, Asia II 6 and Asia II 7 could be identified through sequential digestion with TaqI+VspI+FokI. This study provides an efficient method for identifying nine cryptic species of B. tabaci from China.

Key words: Bemisia tabaci, cryptic species, molecular identification, restriction enzyme, mtCOI, PCR-RFLP