Morphological and molecular characterisation of Steinernema costaricense Uribe-Lorío, Mora & Stock, 2007 (Panagrolaimorpha: Steinernematidae) isolate from Bush Augusta State Park, Missouri, USA.

A new isolate of Steinernema costaricense Uribe-Lorío, Mora & Stock, 2007 (Panagrolaimorpha: Steinernematidae) was discovered from the Bush Augusta State Park, Missouri, USA, and its morphological and molecular examination was carried out. Morphologically, adults of the Missouri isolate are very close to S. costaricense from Costa Rica. Infective juveniles (IJs) from Missouri are characterised by mean body length of 843 μm, mean body width of 33 μm, mean tail length of 80 μm, mean pharynx length of 143 μm, excretory pore at 62 μm from anterior extremity, high cephalic papillae, and lateral field formula 2-6-2 with two central ridges less prominent. They resemble IJs of S. costaricense from Costa Rica in having high cephalic papillae, similar lateral field pattern and pharynx length, but are twice shorter. Based on the nearly complete identity between the sequence of D2-D3 domains of LSU rDNA of the Missouri isolate and those of S. costaricense retrieved from GenBank and the high similarity of their bacterial symbionts, the new isolate was identified as S. costaricense. The phylogenetic affinities among S. costaricense and the species of the "bicornutum" group proposed by the authors of its original description based on LSU rDNA analysis, is debated. In the present study, all three methods of analysis for the ITS region showed that four species of Steinernema from the Americas (S. rarum de Doucet, 1986, S. scarabaei Stock & Koppenhöfer, 2003, S. unicornum Edgington, Buddie, Tymo, France, Merino & Hunt, 2009 and S. costaricense Missouri isolate) formed a weakly supported clade although bootstrap support for the sister-group relationship between the new isolate and S. scarabaei was always high. In phylogenies inferred from D2-D3 LSU rDNA S. costaricense never formed a clade with S. rarum and S. unicornum.