Invasive in the North: new latitudinal record for Argentine ants in Europe
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Insectes Sociaux
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Invasive in the North: new latitudinal record for Argentine ants in Europe N. P. Charrier1,2 · C. Hervet1 · C. Bonsergent1 · M. Charrier3 · L. Malandrin1 · B. Kaufmann4 · J. M. W. Gippet5 Received: 13 November 2019 / Revised: 3 March 2020 / Accepted: 21 March 2020 © International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI) 2020
Abstract Environmental niche models predict the presence of the invasive Argentine ant in north-western Europe, especially along all the French Atlantic coast. Yet, the species has never been observed North from the 45th parallel in Europe, suggesting either that current models are wrong or that Argentine ants are already spreading north inconspicuously. Here, we report a 3-hectare wide colony of Argentine ants, detected in 2016 in Nantes, France, which is 300 km north of the former northernmost outdoor population of this species in Europe. COI sequencing revealed that the haplotype of this new colony is the same as the one found in the so-called Catalonian supercolony, which is distinct from the haplotype found over most of the species range in Europe. Our discovery confirms models’ predictions that Argentine ants can colonize north-western Europe and suggests that they might have already reached several other locations along the French Atlantic coast. Detection surveys should be conducted to assess Argentine ants’ invasion patterns in Western France, particularly in high introduction risk areas such as major cities and maritime ports. Keywords Alien ants · Catalonian supercolony · Colony size · Linepithema humile · Secondary spread
Introduction The Argentine ant, Linepithema humile (Mayr), is a widespread invasive species with strong negative impacts on native biodiversity and human activities (Cole et al. 1992; Suarez et al. 2005; Menke et al. 2018). The species originates from subtropical South America and was unintentionally introduced by human activities on all continents (except) and several islands (Wetterer et al. 2009; Janicki
* N. P. Charrier [email protected] * J. M. W. Gippet [email protected] 1
BIOEPAR, INRA, Oniris, Nantes, France
2
Saxifraga, Angoulême, France
3
Service Espaces Verts, Mairie de Grenoble, 38000 Grenoble, France
4
Université de Lyon, UMR5023 Ecologie des Hydrosystèmes, Naturels et Anthropisés, ENTPE, CNRS, Université Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, 69622 Lyon, France
5
Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
et al. 2016). In Europe, one vast and two smaller supercolonies (i.e., groups of colonies or populations which exhibit no inter-aggressive behavior), which originated from at least two distinct introduction events, are spread all over the Mediterranean coast, Corsica and the Iberic peninsula (Giraud et al. 2002; Blight et al. 2012). The smallest supercolony was found near Barcelona and has thus been named the Catalonian supercolony (Giraud et al. 2002), while the largest has been named the Main European supercolony. The third supercolony, gen
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