Breeding Patterns and Population Genetics of Eastern Subterranean Termites Reticulitermes flavipes in Urban Environment of Nebraska, United States

Abstract

Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar) has become the most destructive subterranean termite pest, on urban structures in Nebraska. In this study, we used seven microsatellite loci to infer the colony breeding system and population genetic structure among 20 infested urban structures in Nebraska. Our data revealed that 17 structures were infested by simple family colonies of R. flavipes, while, the remaining three were infested with mixed family colonies. The measure of population differentiation, FCT value (0.459) indicated that all the 20 urban colonies (10 - 410 km apart) represented pronounced levels of genetic differentiation. The Mantel test disclosed a weak and significantly-positive correlation between genetic and geographic distance (slope = 0.0009, P = 0.001). The urban populations of R. flavipes in Nebraska possessed a breeding system characterized by monogamous pairs of outbred reproductives with excessive heterozygosity.