Global invasion history of the agricultural pest butterfly Pieris rapae revealed with genomics and citizen science

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1907492116
• Publication Date: 2019-09-10T20:15:17Z
• Authors: Sean F. Ryan; Eric Lombaert; Anne Espeset; Roger Vila; Gerard Talavera; Vlad Dincă; Meredith M. Doellman; Mark A. Renshaw; Matthew W. Eng; Emily A. Hornett; Yiyuan Li; Michael E. Pfrender; DeWayne Shoemaker
• Keywords: 570; Invasive; [SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio]; Population Dynamics; Citizen science; DNA, Mitochondrial; approximate Bayesian computation; 03 medical and health sciences; citizen science; genomics; Animals; agricultural pest; 2. Zero hunger; 0303 health sciences; Citizen Science; 500; Genetic Variation; Agriculture; Genomics; 15. Life on land; Genetics, Population; Haplotypes; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Agricultural pest; Approximate Bayesian computation; invasive; Introduced Species; Butterflies

The small cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae , is a major agricultural pest of cruciferous crops and has been introduced to every continent except South America and Antarctica as a result of human activities. In an effort to reconstruct the near-global invasion history of P. rapae , we developed a citizen science project, the “Pieris Project,” and successfully amassed thousands of specimens from 32 countries worldwide. We then generated and analyzed nuclear (double-digest restriction site-associated DNA fragment procedure [ddRAD]) and mitochondrial DNA sequence data for these samples to reconstruct and compare different global invasion history scenarios. Our results bolster historical accounts of the global spread and timing of P. rapae introductions. We provide molecular evidence supporting the hypothesis that the ongoing divergence of the European and Asian subspecies of P. rapae (∼1,200 y B.P.) coincides with the diversification of brassicaceous crops and the development of human trade routes such as the Silk Route (Silk Road). The further spread of P. rapae over the last ∼160 y was facilitated by human movement and trade, resulting in an almost linear series of at least 4 founding events, with each introduced population going through a severe bottleneck and serving as the source for the next introduction. Management efforts of this agricultural pest may need to consider the current existence of multiple genetically distinct populations. Finally, the international success of the Pieris Project demonstrates the power of the public to aid scientists in collections-based research addressing important questions in invasion biology, and in ecology and evolutionary biology more broadly.