Genetic diversity of melon aphids Aphis gossypii associated with landscape features

Despite increasing evidence that landscape features strongly influence the abundance and dispersal of insect populations, landscape composition has seldom been explicitly linked to genetic structure. We conducted a genetic study of the melon aphid, Aphis gossypii, in two counties of Beijing, China during spring migration using samples from watermelon. We performed aphid genetic analysis using restriction site associated DNA sequencing (2b‐RAD) and investigated the relationship between land cover and the genetic diversity. The percentage area of land cover (cropland, vegetable, orchard, grassland, woodland) was quantified in each particular scale (ranging from 0.5 km to 3 km) and was used as a predictor variable in our generalized linear models. We found a moderate level of genetic differentiation among nine sampled populations. Geographic distance and genetic distance were not significantly associated, indicating that geographic location was not a barrier to migration. These nine populations could be clustered depending on their level of genetic diversity (high and low). The genetic diversity (Shannon’s information index) was positively correlated with grassland at the spatial scales of 1 and 2 km and negatively with orchard and vegetable at 0.5 and 1 km. Genetic diversity was best predicted by the grassland + orchard + vegetable model at a spatial scale of 1 km. Based on the method of relative weights, orchard land had the greatest relative importance, followed by grassland and vegetable land, in that order. This study contributes to our understanding of the genetic variation of aphids in agricultural landscapes.