Founder effects on sex determination systems in invasive social insects

Invasive populations are often established from a small number of individuals, and thus have low genetic diversity relative to native-range populations. Social ants, bees and wasps (social Hymenoptera) should be vulnerable to such founder effects on genetic diversity because sex in these species is determined genetically via Complementary Sex Determination (CSD). Under CSD, individuals homozygous at one or more critical sex loci are inviable or develop as infertile diploid males. Low diversity at sex loci leads to increased homozygosity and diploid male production, increasing the chance of colony death. In this review, we identify behavioral, social and reproductive traits that preserve allele richness at sex loci, allow colonies to cope with diploid male production, and eventually restore sex allele diversity in invasive populations of social Hymenoptera that experience founding bottlenecks.

Automated summary

Invasive populations of social Hymenoptera often suffer from low genetic diversity and founder effects, leading to an increased production of diploid males. However, certain behavioral, social, and reproductive traits can help maintain allele richness at sex loci in order to cope with diploid male production and restore sex allele diversity in these populations.