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      The introduction history of invasive garden ants in Europe: Integrating genetic, chemical and behavioural approaches

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          Abstract

          Background

          The invasive garden ant, Lasius neglectus, is the most recently detected pest ant and the first known invasive ant able to become established and thrive in the temperate regions of Eurasia. In this study, we aim to reconstruct the invasion history of this ant in Europe analysing 14 populations with three complementary approaches: genetic microsatellite analysis, chemical analysis of cuticular hydrocarbon profiles and behavioural observations of aggression behaviour. We evaluate the relative informative power of the three methodological approaches and estimate both the number of independent introduction events from a yet unknown native range somewhere in the Black Sea area, and the invasive potential of the existing introduced populations.

          Results

          Three clusters of genetically similar populations were detected, and all but one population had a similar chemical profile. Aggression between populations could be predicted from their genetic and chemical distance, and two major clusters of non-aggressive groups of populations were found. However, populations of L. neglectus did not separate into clear supercolonial associations, as is typical for other invasive ants.

          Conclusion

          The three methodological approaches gave consistent and complementary results. All joint evidence supports the inference that the 14 introduced populations of L. neglectus in Europe likely arose from only very few independent introductions from the native range, and that new infestations were typically started through introductions from other invasive populations. This indicates that existing introduced populations have a very high invasive potential when the ants are inadvertently spread by human transport.

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          Most cited references69

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          Environmental and Economic Costs of Nonindigenous Species in the United States

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            Detection of reduction in population size using data from microsatellite loci.

            We demonstrate that the mean ratio of the number of alleles to the range in allele size, which we term M, calculated from a population sample of microsatellite loci, can be used to detect reductions in population size. Using simulations, we show that, for a general class of mutation models, the value of M decreases when a population is reduced in size. The magnitude of the decrease is positively correlated with the severity and duration of the reduction in size. We also find that the rate of recovery of M following a reduction in size is positively correlated with post-reduction population size, but that recovery occurs in both small and large populations. This indicates that M can distinguish between populations that have been recently reduced in size and those which have been small for a long time. We employ M to develop a statistical test for recent reductions in population size that can detect such changes for more than 100 generations with the post-reduction demographic scenarios we examine. We also compute M for a variety of populations and species using microsatellite data collected from the literature. We find that the value of M consistently predicts the reported demographic history for these populations. This method, and others like it, promises to be an important tool for the conservation and management of populations that are in need of intervention or recovery.
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              Biological invasions: Lessons for ecology.

              D. Lodge (1993)
              Anthropogenic introduction of species is homogenizing the earth's biota. Consequences of introductions are sometimes great, and are directly related to global climate change, biodiversity AND release of genetically engineered organisms. Progress in invasion studies hinges on the following research trends: realization that species' ranges are naturally dynamic; recognition that colonist species and target communities cannot be studied independently, but that species-community interactions determine invasion success; increasingly quantitative tests of how species and habitat characteristics relate to invasibility and impact; recognition from paleobiological, experimental and modeling studies that history, chance and determinism together shape community invasibility. Copyright © 1993. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                BMC Biol
                BMC Biology
                BioMed Central
                1741-7007
                2008
                26 February 2008
                : 6
                : 11
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Centre for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
                [2 ]Evolution, Genetics and Behaviour, Biology I, Institute of Zoology, University of Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany
                [3 ]Chemical Ecology, School of Physical and Geographical Sciences, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG, UK
                Article
                1741-7007-6-11
                10.1186/1741-7007-6-11
                2292682
                18302731
                a75af12a-9636-4e53-be0d-6f2bb051e8c7
                Copyright © 2008 Ugelvig et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

                This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 11 February 2008
                : 26 February 2008
                Categories
                Research Article

                Life sciences
                Life sciences

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