Occurrence of in Sinaloa, Northwestern Mexico: A New Report on Distribution and Host Range.

The present study reports the occurrence of the genus in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, associated with native plants (i.e., and ) in a natural coastal ecosystem. Both morphological and molecular approaches were employed to characterize the Sinaloa population. Notwithstanding of some morphological and morphometric variation between from Sinaloa and other valid species, the characterization indicates that this population might belong to the species complex. Molecular analyses based on the 28S gene and ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 regions of the ribosomal RNA (rRNA) identified four major clades within ; however, none of the species including , , and were supported as monophyletic; yet monophyly is argued to be a basic requirement of species status. Sequence divergence among different populations and species varied according to the rRNA dataset (i.e., ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 > 28S > 18S) used, thus showing the importance of using genes with different rates of evolution to estimate species relationships. The fact that has not been found in other cultivated (including on suitable hosts) areas in Sinaloa and that this population is relatively distant from the common groups (i.e., clades A and B) suggests that its appearance was not due to a recent introduction associated with the local agriculture.