Globally invasive populations of the clonal raider ant are derived from Bangladesh.

ABSTRACT: Identifying the native range of invasive species is useful to understand their evolution and natural history, as well as to develop new methods to control potentially harmful introduced organisms. The clonal raider ant, Ooceraea biroi, is an introduced species and an increasingly important social insect model organism, but its native range remains unknown. Here, we report a new series of O. biroi collections from Bangladesh, Singapore, Vietnam and China. We use a molecular phylogeny constructed with five gene fragments from 27 samples to determine that invasive lineages of O. biroi originated in Bangladesh. These lineages may have spread from Bangladesh via the historically significant Bay of Bengal shipping ports. Ooceraea biroi shares multiple features of its

SUBMITTER: Trible W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7336853 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature