Revision and molecular study of the genus Oscheius Andrassy, 1976 (nematoda: Rhabditida) in middle of Iraq

Nematodes of the genus Oscheius Andrássy, 1976 have been isolated from various habitats, including compost, caves, grasshoppers, and termites. Despite being an apparently polyphyletic group, some Oscheius species have been considered good candidates for biological control of agricultural insect pests and have been used as model organisms in different research fields. This study represents molecular and morphological work about the genus Oscheius of entomopathogenic nematodes in middle of Iraq. These species are Oscheius myriophilus (Poinar, 1986) Sudhaus, 2011, and Oscheius chongmingensis (Zhang, Liu, Xu, Sun, Yang, An, Gao, Lin, Lai, He, Wu & Zhang, 2008), note that the second species considered a new record for the nematode fauna of Iraq. The present study aims to provide a comprehensive molecular phylogeny of the genus Oscheius by using the 28S rRNA gene.