Soapberry Bug (Hemiptera: Rhopalidae: Serinethinae) Native and Introduced Host Plants: Biogeographic Background of Anthropogenic Evolution

Abstract

Abstract Soapberry bugs (Hemiptera: Rhopalidae: Serinethinae) have recently colonized introduced and invasive plants in the soapberry family (Sapindaceae), and they have rapidly differentiated as a result. These plants have been carried among continents at many places and times, and they may possess alien coevolutionary histories with other soapberry bug genera and species, exposing native bugs worldwide to both new challenges and new opportunities in host exploitation. To provide geographic and phylogenetic contexts for this human-catalyzed evolution, we analyzed the worldwide host relations of the three soapberry bug genera on native versus non-native sapinds. We found that the adopted introduced hosts are taxonomically distant from native hosts in six of seven global biogeographic regions. Only a few genera account for most of the introductions, and natives and non-natives are now reciprocally distributed across several pairs of continents. The evolutionary result may be local diversification, but also global convergence on currently rare bug phenotypes when plants with small endemic ranges are widely exported.