Local climate adaptation and gene flow in the native range of two co‐occurring fruit moths with contrasting invasiveness

Abstract

Invasive species pose increasing threats to global biodiversity and ecosystems. While previous studies have characterized successful invaders based on ecological traits, characteristics related to evolutionary processes have rarely been investigated. Here we compared gene flow and local adaptation using demographic analyses and outlier tests in two co‐occurring moth pests across their common native range of China, one of which (the peach fruit moth, Carposina sasakii) has maintained its native distribution, while the other (the oriental fruit moth, Grapholita molesta) has expanded its range globally during the past century. We found that both species showed a pattern of genetic differentiation and an evolutionary history consistent with a common southwestern origin and northward expansion in their native range. However, for the noninvasive species, genetic differentiation was closely aligned with the environment, and there was a relatively low level of gene flow, whereas in the invasive species, genetic differentiation was associated with geography. Genome scans indicated stronger patterns of climate‐associated loci in the noninvasive species. While strong local adaptation and reduced gene flow across its native range may have decreased the invasiveness of C. sasakii, this requires further validation with additional comparisons of invasive and noninvasive species across their native range.

Population genomic signatures of the oriental fruit moth related to the Pleistocene climates

“…This is consistent with variation in the effective size of the three populations after the LGM (Fig. 4a ), and is also in agreement with the previous research 12 , 32 , 36 .…”

“…Larvae of the oriental fruit moth bore for long periods into fruit and tree shoots; they often disperse via the transport of fruit or nursery stock. During the last century, the oriental fruit moth has spread to almost every continent (reaching a cosmopolitan distribution) and shows high invasiveness 36 . Population genetic analyses showed that the globally dispersed populations are likely from other recently colonized populations rather than from the refugial area of Sichuan 12 , 30 .…”

“…Thus, the SCCD population is likely to have remained relatively isolated. Molecular dating and demographic analysis has also shown that northerly populations of oriental fruit moth are derived from the refugial area of Yunnan in the Middle Pleistocene (about 54.0 kya) rather than Sichuan, whereas the two refugial populations of YNHH and SCCD diverged in the early Pleistocene (about 286 kya) 12 , 32 , 36 . Hence, strong local adaptation in the SCCD population was most likely shaped before the Middle Pleistocene.…”

The Role of Genetic Factors in the Differential Invasion Success of Two Spartina Species in China

“…Rapid local adaptation of invasive alien species usually includes two aspects: phenotypic plasticity and genetic evolution ( Wellband and Heath, 2017 ; VanWallendael et al, 2018 ; Cao et al, 2021 ). Early studies on rapid adaptive evolution were mostly based on phenotypic changes between generations through common garden experiments or reciprocal transplant experiments ( Turner et al, 2014 ; Ochocki and Miller, 2017 ).…”

Population Genetic Structure of the Invasive Spotted Alfalfa Aphid Therioaphis trifolii (Hemiptera: Aphididae) in China Inferred From Complete Mitochondrial Genomes

“…This study investigated the population genetic structure of SAA in China using complete genome sequences. Population genetic structure of species can be inferred from mitochondrial genes and nuclear markers (Zhang et al, 2017;Cao et al, 2021). However, the complete mitogenome may accumulate more variations and provide valuable information for population genetic structure inference (Du et al, 2019(Du et al, , 2021.…”