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Global incursion pathways of Thaumastocoris peregrinus, an invasive Australian pest of eucalypts

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Abstract

The bronze bug, Thaumastocoris peregrinus, is an endemic Australian eucalypt pest that has become a serious threat to the global forestry industry. Following a large outbreak within its native range in 2002, introduced populations of the bronze bug appeared in South Africa and Argentina. Since then, T. peregrinus has spread rapidly around the world, with the number of reported incursions increasing steadily. Despite the problems posed by the bronze bug, little is known about its global invasion pathways. In this study, we used multiple different population genetic methods to (1) gain new insight into aspects of bronze bug population history within Australia, and (2) characterise the spread of the bronze bug throughout South America, South Africa, New Zealand and the Mediterranean Basin. Taken together, the genetic data and the outbreak records suggest that, across the international regions surveyed, at least three separate introductions of T. peregrinus from Australia have occurred over the decade 2003–2012—one into South Africa, another into Argentina and a third into New Zealand—each of which is likely to have originated in Sydney. Populations in Europe and Israel appear to have become established from individuals introduced from South America, rather than from within the native Australian range, suggesting the existence of a bridgehead effect. These findings provide an important framework for understanding the global spread of invasive bronze bug populations. They may be used to inform management decisions and improve the effectiveness of control strategies.

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Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files. Mitochondrial COI sequences have been deposited in GenBank under the accession numbers FJ623760-FJ623764, FJ623771-FJ623773 and MT620977-MT621017.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by funding from the Biological Control of Eucalypt Pests Alliance (BiCEP). The authors wish to thank Michael Brown for his generous financial assistance, which allowed the collections to take place, Manon Griffiths and Cleo Gardiner for assistance with the collection and curation of samples, and Heng (Grace) Wei for technical assistance. We also thank the following contributors who generously provided specimens for analysis in this study: Stefania Laudonia (Italy), Carlos Valente (Portugal), Zvi Mendel (Israel), Renato Junqueira and Bianca Vique (Brazil), Toni Withers (New Zealand), Sandra Iede Mayorga, Claudia Muñoz and Evelyn Zuñiga (Chile) and Brett Hurley (South Africa). We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback and suggestions.

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Contributions

HN, SL, KR, AN, and NL conceived and designed research. AM conducted experiments. HN contributed samples, new reagents and/or analytical tools. AM, NL and KR analyzed data. KR and AM and wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Katie Robinson or Nathan Lo.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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The insects used in this study are exempt from international, national, and institutional animal ethics approval.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

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Montagu, A., Robinson, K., Noack, A. et al. Global incursion pathways of Thaumastocoris peregrinus, an invasive Australian pest of eucalypts. Biol Invasions 22, 3501–3518 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-020-02337-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-020-02337-y

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