Abstract: 【Aim】 Leguminivora glycinivorella (Matsumura) is one of the major pests of soybean Glycina max in China. This study aims to investigate the genetic  ifferentiation among different geographic populations of L. glycinivorella in mainland China. 【Methods】 A 723 bp segment of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit II (COII) gene in 208 mature larvae from 19 geographic populations of L. glycinivorella in China was sequenced and analyzed. The genetic differentiation and sequence variation were analyzed using MEGA6.0 and DnaSP 5.0.【Results】Among the alignment of 208 COII sequences from 19 geographic populations of L. glycinivorella， 61 variable sites and 57 haplotypes were identified. The total haplotype diversity index (Hd) was 0.8522， and the range of haplotype diversity of different populations was 0.1818-0.9546.The total fixed coefficient (Fst)， total genetic differentiation coefficient (Gst) and total gene flow (Nm) were 0.4619， 0.1186 and 0.29，respectively. No significant difference among different populations was found by Tajima’s D test, suggesting that there might be no population expansion in recent history of L. glycinivorella and the population size is stable. Analysis of haplotype networks， ML  hylogenetic trees of haplotypes and UPGMA phylogenetic trees based on the genetic distance of different geographic populations showed that Guiyang (GY) and Du’an (DA) populations had obvious genetic differentiation with other populations. Molecular variance analysis (AMOVA) of geographic populations demonstrated that the percentage of variation among the population groups of Northeast China， Northwest China, Huang-Huai region, South China， and Southwest China was higher than those within each population group. 【Conclusion】The results revealed that there is less gene flow among different geographic populations of L. glycinivorella， which have high-degree whole genetic diversity and genetic differentiation. And the observed genetic differentiation  rimarily occurs among population groups of different geographic regions. The geographic distance has important influence on the genetic distance of different geographic populations of L. glycinivorella.

Key words: Leguminivora glycinivorella, mitochondrial COII gene, geographic population, genetic differentiation, gene flow