Spatial population structure: patterns of adaptation in populations of the water hyacinth grasshopper Cornops aquaticum (Bruner 1906)

The water hyacinth grasshopper Cornops aquaticum (Bruner 1906) constitutes an appropriate model to assess phenotypic and karyotypic variability in the context of differentiation and adaptation of insect populations because it occurs over a wide latitudinal range. This study represents a general analysis of phenotype, karyotype and molecular variation in native populations of C. aquaticum in South America. This is also relevant because this insect is considered a promising biological control agent of water hyacinth, a native South American aquatic plant but a pest in South Africa. Along Paraná and Uruguay River Basins, body size correlated negatively with latitude, and positively so with temperature and rainfall in both sexes. To test whether the chromosomal and phenotypic patterns were adaptive, we compared them with neutral microsatellite loci variation in populations from the medium and lower course of the Paraná River. Firstly, the lack of pairwise association between karyotype and phenotype distance matrixes with that of neutral loci suggested non-neutrality. Secondly, phenotypic differentiation for all morphometric traits (PST) was significantly larger than molecular differentiation (FST), indicating a prevailing divergence selection effect on the observed phenotypic patterns. Finally, the phenotypic and genotypic spatial structures – inferred from Bayesian approaches – were discordant: neutral genetic structure clustered together most populations except for the two southernmost, downstream ones, whereas phenotypic spatial structure groups together all the deltaic populations and singles out the two northernmost ones. The results suggest directional selection leading to higher centric fusion frequencies in the downstream populations and favouring morphometric optimal differences in relation to the environment.