Freeman, A.; Xia, X. Phylogeographic Reconstruction to Trace the Source Population of Asian Giant Hornet Caught in Nanaimo in Canada and Blaine in the USA. Life2024, 14, 283.
Freeman, A.; Xia, X. Phylogeographic Reconstruction to Trace the Source Population of Asian Giant Hornet Caught in Nanaimo in Canada and Blaine in the USA. Life 2024, 14, 283.
Freeman, A.; Xia, X. Phylogeographic Reconstruction to Trace the Source Population of Asian Giant Hornet Caught in Nanaimo in Canada and Blaine in the USA. Life2024, 14, 283.
Freeman, A.; Xia, X. Phylogeographic Reconstruction to Trace the Source Population of Asian Giant Hornet Caught in Nanaimo in Canada and Blaine in the USA. Life 2024, 14, 283.
Abstract
Asian giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia, is an invasive species that could potentially destroy local honeybee industry in North America. It has been observed to nest in the coastal regions of British Columbia in Canada and Washington State in USA. What is the source population of the immigrant hornets? The identification of the source population can not only shed light on the route of immigration, but also on the similarity between the native habitat and the potential new habitat in the Pacific Northwest. We analyzed mitochondrial COX1 sequences of specimens sampled from multiple populations in China, South Korea, Japan and the Russian Far East. V. mandarinia exhibits phylogeographic patterns, forming monophyletic clades for 16 specimens from China, six specimens from South Korea and two specimens from Japan. The two mitochondrial COX1 sequences from Nanaimo, British Columbia are identical to the two sequences from Japan. The COX1 sequence from Blaine, Washington State, clustered with those from South Korea, and is identical to one sequence from South Korea (GenBank accession MN716828). Our geophylogeny, which allows visualization of genetic variation over time and space, provides evolutionary insights on the evolution and speciation of three closely related vespine species (V. tropica, V. soror and V. mandarinia). The geophylogeny also highlights a strong insufficiency in sample collection in China. The existing sequenced specimens from mainland China with geographic coordinates were represent only four provinces, missing populations along the coastal regions in East China. One therefore cannot exclude the possibility that the Asian giant hornet found in Canada and USA may also be identical to V. mandarinia in Eastern China. We strongly recommend more extensive DNA barcoding data with geographic information and longer DNA barcode (e.g., the entire mitochondrial genome) so that critical questions on invasive species and environmental conservation can be addressed more accurately than what is possible with existing data.
Keywords
Vespa mandarinia; invasive species; conservation biology; DNA barcoding; phylogeography; geophylogeny
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
