Morphological and molecular systematics of anopheles species (diptera: Culicidae) distributed in turkey

Malaria, which has been existed for many years around the world and is still causing the death of thousands of people, is the most important vector-borne disease. Human malaria vectors are found in the Anopheles genus of the mosquitoes. Therefore, in many countries the Anopheles species has been the primary target for the mosquitoes control efforts. Since the correct determination of the target species is important for thr control of malaria and malaria vectors, studies of the Anopheles systematics have increased rapidly. Numerous techniques, which have been evolved in many countries overtime, used for this purpose and serious research was done for the determination of both Anopheles species and malaria vectors. The aim of this study is the identification of the Anopheles species in our country using both morphological and molecular methods. For this purpose, initially, larvae and adult samples of the Anopheles species from different regions of our country were collected by using the entomological methods and morphological examinations were performed under laboratory conditions. Then, molecular idendification methods were used for species verification on the systematically problematic taxa with insufficient morphological characters as well as on the other species. rDNA ITS2 region and mtDNA COI gene sequence data were used for molecular identification of the species and, the reliability of the morphological species identification was tested using molecular data. Species identification were verified by comparing the results of this study and the data of rDNA ITS2 region and mtDNA COI gene sequence studies performed in different countries.