Native area and biological features of invasive ladybird Harmonia axyridis

Variability of the mitochondrial CO1 gene in native and invasive populations of Harmonia axyridis Pall. comparative analysis

“…A comparative analysis of molecular variability indices highlights various evolutionary scenarios population formation and their intraspecific groups [61]. The relatively high values of the molecular diversity of π and Pi in western native population group and lower in the eastern group (Table 4) with similar indicators of haplotype diversity (h) completely confirms the hypothesis of the microevolutionary history of the species, based on the analysis of complex morphological character geographical variation of H. axyridis in the [3,13,14]. In accordance with this hypothesis, modern native populations of the western group occurred in the Holocene from several small isolates that persisted in the regions of Western and Central Siberia during the peak of the last Pleistocene (Sartan) glaciation, and the eastern group of Russian populations occurred in the Holocene as a result of the expansion of the range of a fairly large eastern refugium formed during this glaciation in the territories corresponding to the modern southeastern provinces of China.…”

“…However, the origin of this population has not yet been clarified. It is removed from the documented boundaries of the native range of H. axyridis [3,12,34] as it could be formed due to the gradual penetration of small groups or several individuals of H. axyridis from Altai by rail and their hybridization with remnants of 250 thousand animals from Primorsky Krai (eastern group of populations) that were released in the Zailiysky Alatau at the end of the last century [34].…”

“…of the last century inhabited Central and Northeast Asia. The boundaries and features of the native range of this species based on the cadastral list of finds and their localization on the map were described in detail [1][2][3]. A significant part of the native range of the species is located in Russia-from the middle course of the Irtysh River in Western Siberia to the Pacific coast, including Sakhalin, and the South Kuril Islands.…”

Invasion of the Asian Ladybird Harmonia axyridis (Pallas, 1773) in the European Part of Russia

“…If H. axyridis spreads to the east beyond the Urals, it will be possible to observe an interesting natural experiment, when the populations of two subspecies of H. axyridis, which clearly differ in morphological features [color and pattern on the elytra- (Blekhman and Goryacheva, 2017)] and in mitotypes-variants of mitochondrial DNA (Zakharov et al, 2011), unite in the Tomsk-Novosibirsk area (the western edge of the native range). Given the rate of spread of H. axyridis, one can expect that nature will stage this population-genetic experiment in the next 10 years.…”

“…The natural range of the Asian ladybird Harmonia axyridis (Pallas, 1773) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) covers the following territories: North-Eastern and Central China, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Eastern Kazakhstan, and in Russia-the Far East, southern Siberia, Tyva, and Altai (Orlova-Bienkowskaja et al, 2015;Blekhman and Goryacheva, 2017;Andrianov et al, 2018). In the early 1980's, the global invasion of H. axyridis began first in the United States (Koch et al, 2006), from where the Asian ladybird spread to South America, Africa, and Europe where it mixed with populations used in biological protection of greenhouse crops that escaped into the open (Lombaert et al, 2010;Roy et al, 2016).…”