Abstract
BackgroundInvasive species are increasingly driving biodiversity decline, and knowledge of colonization dynamics, including both drivers and dispersal modes, are important to prevent future invasions. The bee species Megachile sculpturalis (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae), native to East-Asia, was first recognized in Southeast-France in 2008, and has since spread throughout much of Europe. The spread is very fast, and colonization may result from multiple fronts.ResultTo track the history of this invasion, codominant markers were genotyped using Illumina sequencing and the invasion history and degree of connectivity between populations across the European invasion axis were investigated. Distinctive genetic clusters were detected with east–west differentiations in Middle-Europe.ConclusionWe hypothesize that the observed cluster formation resulted from multiple, independent introductions of the species to the European continent. This study draws a first picture of an early invasion stage of this wild bee and forms a foundation for further investigations, including studies of the species in their native Asian range and in the invaded range in North America.
Highlights
Invasive species are increasingly driving biodiversity decline, and knowledge of colonization dynamics, including both drivers and dispersal modes, are important to prevent future invasions
The sample group Sample group France (FR) represented the highest number of polymorphic loci with 95.65%, followed by the sample group Sample group Switzerland (CH) 93.48% and SFR with 89.13% and Sample group Vienna (VIE) with 67.39%, which is probably a result of the uneven sample sizes across regions
Microsatellite loci enabled the first insights on the demographic dynamics of this introduced wild bee
Summary
Invasive species are increasingly driving biodiversity decline, and knowledge of colonization dynamics, including both drivers and dispersal modes, are important to prevent future invasions. The bee species Megachile sculpturalis (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae), native to East-Asia, was first recognized in Southeast-France in 2008, and has since spread throughout much of Europe. The species naturally occurs in East-Asia (Japan, China, South-Korea and Taiwan), but was first established outside its native range in the eastern USA around 1994, and is considered as invasive species [14, 20, 21]. It is classified as a pollen generalist, this polylectic species presents a strong preference for pollen of Styphnolobium japonicum and Ligustrum sp. A recent study detected a negative correlation between its presences in trap nests and the emergence of native bee species raising the question of the magnitude of the impact of M. sculpturalis on the local bee populations [25]
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