Putri Diyona, Yokozawa Masanori, Yamanaka Toshiro, Cronin Adam L
Department of Biology, Graduate School of Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1-1 Minami-Osawa, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan.
School of Marine Resource and Environment, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, 4-5-7 Konan, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8477, Japan.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Sep 15;11(9):2702. doi: 10.3390/ani11092702.
Characters in invasive populations often differ from those in the native range, and the ability to express different characters may enhance invasive potential. Ants are among the most pervasive and damaging invasive species, by virtue of their transportability and broad-ranging ecological interactions. Their success is often attributed to the ability to exhibit different characteristics in invasive populations, including the formation of large, unicolonial associations ('supercolonies'). It remains unclear, however, if such characteristics are a product or cause of the ecological dominance of invasive ants, and the advancement of our understanding has likely been restrained by the fact that studies to date have focused on a few globally important species with well-established invasions. In this study, we take advantage of an ongoing invasion of the tramp ant in Japan to assess trait plasticity in the invasive range of this species. We find evidence for plasticity in social structure among island populations, with a supercolony evident on one of the three islands studied. Interestingly, we found no evidence of lower genetic diversity in this population, though natural isotope data indicate it was operating at a lower trophic level than other populations. These findings add weight to arguments that invasive species may benefit from the capacity to adaptively mould themselves to new ecological contexts.
入侵种群中的特征往往与原生范围内的不同，而表达不同特征的能力可能会增强入侵潜力。蚂蚁是最具普遍性和破坏性的入侵物种之一，这得益于它们的可移动性和广泛的生态相互作用。它们的成功往往归因于在入侵种群中表现出不同特征的能力，包括形成大型的单巢联合体（“超级蚁群”）。然而，目前尚不清楚这些特征是入侵蚂蚁生态优势的产物还是原因，而且我们认识的进展可能受到了这样一个事实的限制，即迄今为止的研究集中在少数已确立入侵态势的全球重要物种上。在本研究中，我们利用日本正在发生的流浪蚁入侵事件来评估该物种入侵范围内的性状可塑性。我们发现岛屿种群的社会结构具有可塑性的证据，在所研究的三个岛屿之一上有一个明显的超级蚁群。有趣的是，我们没有发现该种群遗传多样性较低的证据，尽管天然同位素数据表明它处于比其他种群更低的营养级。这些发现进一步支持了这样的观点，即入侵物种可能受益于其适应新生态环境的能力。
