Estimation of the number of founders of an invasive pest insect population: the fire ant Solenopsis invicta in the USA
2008
Ross, Kenneth G. | Shoemaker, D DeWayne
Determination of the number of founders responsible for the establishment of invasive plant and animal populations is important for developing biologically based management practices, predicting the invasive potential of species, and making inferences about basic ecological and evolutionary processes. The red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, is an major invasive pest insect first introduced into the USA from its native South American range 70 years ago. We use extensive data from diverse genetic markers surveyed in the putative source population and relevant introduced populations to estimate the number of founders of the USA population. Genotypic data from different classes of nuclear markers (microsatellites, allozymes, sex-determination locus) and sequence data from the mitochondrial DNA are largely congruent in suggesting that 9-20 mated queens likely comprised the initial founder group to colonize the USA at Mobile, Alabama in the mid-1930s. Estimates of founder group size based on expanded samples from throughout the southern USA were marginally higher than this, consistent with the hypothesis that one or more secondary introductions of the ant into the USA occurred.
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