Development, ultrastructure, natural occurrence, and molecular characterization of Liebermannia patagonica n. g., n. sp., a microsporidian parasite of the grasshopper Tristira magellanica (Orthoptera: Tristiridae)

A new microsporidium, Liebermannia patagonica n. gen., n. sp., is described from midgut and gastric caecum epithelial cells of Tristira magellanica, an apterous grasshopper species of southern Patagonia, Argentina. L. patagonica is diplokaryotic, apansporoblastic, homosporous, and polysporoblastic. Transitional (from merogony to sporogony) stages and sporonts of L. patagonica were surrounded by host rough endoplasmic reticulum. The ovocylindrical spores measured 2.9 ± 0.09 × 1.2 ± 0.04 μm (fresh, n = 50), and they had an isofilar polar filament of only three coils and a cluster of tubules instead of a classical posterior vacuole. Prevalence was high (up to 80.6%) at the type locality for the four years sampled. Maximum likelihood, neighbor joining, and maximum parsimony analyses of the small subunit rDNA all placed L. patagonica (Accession No. DQ 239917) in one clade with Orthosomella operophterae.