Authors Contribution

ES, YPL and LGC collected scale insects, their associates as well as the information of the geographic distribution of species and performed DNA extractions. ES designed the primers, performed the PCRs and prepared the samples for Illumina multi-target amplicon sequencing. ES, YKY and JE developed the bioinformatics pipeline. ES built the phylogeny and conducted the analysis regarding strain determination. GFA developed the mathematical model. ES wrote the manuscript under the supervision of LGC and JE.