Authors
Elina Fallet, Shanèze Noël, Mathis Ventura, Jean-Lou Justine, Virginie Roy, Lise Dupont
Published in
Genetica. Volume 154. Issue 1. Oct 25, 2026. Epub Oct 25, 2026.
Abstract
Biological invasions pose a significant threat to biodiversity, yet the processes of introduction and dispersal remain difficult to reconstruct, particularly in soil-dwelling organisms. A multi-marker molecular approach can help overcome this limitation. Here, we examined the genetic structure of the invasive terrestrial flatworm Obama nungara (Geoplanidae) in France using mitochondrial (COI) sequences and newly developed nuclear microsatellite markers, representing the first application of this marker type in an invasive geoplanid flatworm. Analysis of 340 COI sequences, including 169 that were newly generated for this study, revealed that all recent French populations belong to the Argentina 1 lineage, with no evidence of additional primary introductions. Haplotype diversity was low at the local scale. In contrast, microsatellite data revealed moderate genetic diversity and heterozygote deficits in several populations, as well as signatures of recent bottlenecks. Significant genetic differentiation was observed among most populations, with no isolation by distance. These results suggest that the invasion of O. nungara in France was driven by a small number of initial introductions followed by sporadic spread, likely facilitated by horticultural trade. Combining mitochondrial and nuclear markers further reveals a pattern of weakly connected introduction foci rather than a continuous spatial expansion, which reflects the contribution of complementary genetic markers to resolving invasion dynamics across scales.
PMID:
42927530
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 26 Oct 2026.
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