© 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162) Mitochondrial Cytochrome c Oxydase Subunit I (COI) Gene based Identification and Control of Invasive Stink Bug Species: A Review 1Anant Shinde, 2Rajesh Dhakane,3 Harishchandra Kulkarni 1Associate Professor, 2Assistant Professor, 3Principal 1Department of Zoology, Yashwantrao Chavan Arts and Science Mahavidyalaya, Mangrulpir, District Washim, Maharashtra, India. 2Department of Microbiology Jaywantrao Sawant College of Science and Commerce, Hadapsar, Pune, India. 3Department of Physics, Jaywantrao Sawant College of Science and Commerce, Hadapsar, Pune, India. Abstract: Infestation of economically important crops by invasive pests such as stink bugs has been ever increasing problem in the globe from many years and their controlling strategies are being implemented in many countries. However, their identification and relationship with hosts have been poorly understood because of insufficient platform of morphology based taxonomical science, especially in the cases of immature or damaged specimens where external characters are uneasy to detect. Putting effective pest management programs into the operation is merely impossible if the target stink bug species, harms caused by them and their hosts are poorly investigated. Moreover, target oriented pest control strategies avoiding disastrous effects on non-harmful biota require understanding of species diversity of pests and their host plants under study which are difficult if morphological database is implemented. Therefore, in this review, we assessed the COI gene based species identification methodology of potentially destructive stink bugs, economic losses caused by them, their chemical and biological controlling strategies in addition with role of DNA barcoding in biomonitoring of these pests generating awareness among global farmers to overcome the problem of losses to commercial crops and orchards. Index Terms - Stink bugs, pest management, COI gene, host specificity, identification problems, crop loss, biota. INTRODUCTION Many natural and anthropogenic calamities are responsible for huge agroecological losses in the world resulting into undersupply of food to growing population. This problem is more severe in agriculture based developing countries where many people are dependent on agricultural sources for their survival. The potential pests of agricultural systems are true bugs, grasshoppers, beetles, aphids, green flies, sunflower maggot flies, plant hoppers etc. that cause major losses to fruit trees and crops. Stink bug, which is one of the groups of true bug species is substantial crop pest in India and western countries. The controlling strategies of these insect species are existing and are being implemented although their success rates are restricted, particularly in developing countries owing to lack of awareness among people and methodologies used in pest control management program. Also, the species identification of such insects is one of the challenging issues as these have more than 42,000 species belonging to greater than 500 genera and 140 families (Henry TJ, 2009) suggesting their diverse speciation and distribution in the globe. Species identification of such insect fauna which is primary requirement of their controlling program is challenging task due to their vast diversity and lack of proper morphological characters of immature specimens, unavailability of expert taxonomists and underdeveloped knowledge of cryptic and sibling species. Moreover, adequate knowledge of hosts susceptible to infection plays key role in target specific pest control program avoiding harm to non-harmful biota and supporting earth’s natural cycles. In addition, the severity of crop loss due to species in question should be known in order to understand emergency of launching pest control programs in affected areas. In this review, we appraised occurrence of stink bugs along with potential harms caused by them to fruit trees and economically valuable crops along with their COI based taxonomical identification, species variation pattern and phylogenitic relationships. Furthermore, we enlightened their control measures including both chemical and biological methods with particular emphasis to biological methods. Moreover, we evaluated the possible applicability of DNA barcodes for eradication of stink bug species from commercially important agricultural crops and orchards preventing their losses due to invasions. Occurrence stink bugs: Stink bugs, especially oriental species are found in countries such as India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (Memon et al., 2002) of southern Asia on various crops due to availability of favorable environmental conditions. However, individuals of Nezara viridula are also distributed in other continents including not only tropical but also subtropical areas of Eurasia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas (Hoffman et al. 1987, Panizzi, 2000), whereas Nezara antennata was reported to occur in oriental and the southeastern edge of the Palaearctic region by Li M et al. (2014). Furthermore, stink bugs have various coloration and some of them have brown (brown marmorated stink bug Halyomorpha halys (Stål)) and yellow (yellow-brown stink bug-Halyomorpha halys) colors which are found in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan (Jesus Lara et al., 2016) and East Asia (China, Korea, Japan), Allentown Pennsylvania in US JETIR1907R57 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 345 © 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162) (Hoebeke and Carter 2003), Switzerland, Canada (Quebec and Ontario) Wermelinger et al. 2008; Harris 2010; Fogain and Graff 2011), respectively. In addition, Litchi stink bug species is distributed in India (Kumar et al. 2008). Crop and economic losses: Nezara viridula which is actively invasive (Hoffman et al. 1987; Panizzi 2000), polymorphic and cosmopolitan pentatomid crop pest causes economic loss by infecting number of crop species (Panizzi 2000; Reid 2006). Moreover, according to Matteo Bracalini et al. (2015) and Rodney N. Nagoshi et al. (2012), crop pests have serious effects on host plants on which they thrive. For instance, the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), Halyomorpha halys (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) is a pest of plants that infect ornamentals, crops, weeds, forests and fruit crops such as apples, pears, persimmon and peaches across China, Japan, Korea, and the USA (Funayama, 2004; Yu and Zhang, 2007; Nielsen and Hamilton, 2009; Son et al., 2009) and is causative agent of phytoplasma disease of Paulownia tomentosa in Asia and suspected vector of several phytoplasmas (Jones and Lambdin, 2009). Also, Halyomorpha halys (yellow-brown stink bug) is agricultural pest of tree fruits and soyabeans (Hoffman 1931; Kobayashi et al. 1972; Funayama 2004). As well, BMSB generate public nuisance during late autumn and eventually entering them to overwinter (Hamilton, 2009) generating unpleasant odor after disturbance (Dhami et al., 2016) and have affected fruit industry in the North America (Nielsen and Hamilton, 2009; Nielsen et al., 2011). In addition, Jentsch (2012), Leskey et al. (2012), Nielsen and Hamilton (2009), Pfeiffer et al. (2012), Rice et al. 2014) stated that BMSB are responsible for causing damage to crops including apples, soybeans, tomatoes, peaches, corn, grapes and caneberries in East Coast states viz. Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. Additionally, it is known as fruit-piercing stink bug which causes invasion to diverse fruits including soybean and apple in Japan (Toyama M et al. 2011) along with orchard crops, vegetables, grapes, row crops, ornamentals and nursery crops (ESA, 2011). Likewise, these invasive pests caused damage and economical loss of estimated $37 million to apple farmers from Mid-Atlantic States (Leskey et al. 2012) and have increasing concern on their detections on commercial crops viz. hazelnuts, blackberries and wine grapes in Oregon (Hansen and Mullinax, 2014) as well as on crops such as peppers, apples, peaches, plums and cherries in Washington (Eddy 2015). Additionally, soyabean production is threatened by stink bugs in US (Peiffer M and Felton GW, 2014) and endemic species such as southern green stink bug (Nezara viridula), green stink bug (Chinavia hilaris or Acrosternum hilare), and brown stink bug (Euschistus servus), brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys), the red-banded stink bug (Piezodorus guildinii), and the kudzu bug (Plataspidae) (Megacopta cribraria) are recent and serious pests in crops of U.S (Akin S et al., 2011). Besides, invasive pests resulted into >$3 billion/year economic loss to California (Metcalf, 1995) and H. halys has dominated mid-Atlantic areas (Nielsen and Hamilton 2009; Nielsen et al. 2011) and caused loss of $37 million by infecting apples in 2010 (Seetin 2011) along with not recorded losses to diverse ornamentals, vegetables and field crops (Leskey and Hamilton 2010; Kuhar et al. 2012). Need of stink bug identification: Identifying invasive agricultural pests causing potential crop loss is very important for their effective control (Jiawu Xu et al., 2014). According to Raupach MJ et al. (2014), morphological as well as molecular analyses of true bugs of different families are needed. This approach is concordant with the view proposed by Sanket Tembe et al. (2014) who stated that lower amount of DNA sequences belonging to Pentatomomorpha bugs are deposited in DNA databases despite the fact that