Before 16th century Spanish sailors set off on farsighted voyages across the Pacific Ocean from the port city of Acapulco , Mexico , they filled the ballasts of their ships with dirt to keep the vessels steady in high winds and rough seas . When they reached their destinations in the Philippines , the straw hat supercede the soil with cargo , leaving the dirt behind . What they could n’t have have it away was that they were also leave behind what wasinthe soil : Tropical fervour emmet ( genus Solenopsis geminata ) .
Anew study , carry on by scientists at the University of Illinois and the University of Vermont in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and published inMolecular Ecology , has disclose that these insects — once found only in the Americas but now situate in tropical surround worldwide — hitched a ride to the Philippines in Spanish ship , makingS.geminatathe first ant species to travel the globe by sea .
Ants were the idealistic subjects to expend to essay the potential impact of early world trade in the spread of species because , the scientist write in the newspaper publisher , “ they are promptly move via ship transfer , making them highly susceptible to human dispersal . There are a phone number of far-flung ant metal money with worldwide or near global distributions . Their aboriginal reach are often unknown , as is precise and detailed historical corroboration of their bedspread . ”
It was unsettled which region of the world the tropical fire emmet in the beginning called home , but the investigator conjecture that the original universe of pismire would have the most genetic diversity , and that any ants that come from that population would have a subset of that diversity . To examine their hypothesis , the scientists not only front for patterns in the mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid of fire emmet from 192 locations , but also in the pattern of Spanish ships , analyzing diachronic phonograph recording and trading path to and from the New World in the 16th century , when the Spanish had just set up the first trade wind route across the Pacific Ocean between Acapulco and the Philippines .
Julie McMahon
The genetical data support the scientist ’ supposition , documenting “ a corresponding spread ofS.geminatafrom Mexico via Manila to Taiwan and from there , throughout the Old World , ” they publish in the paper .
“ The ants from the usher in areas in the Old World are genetically most standardised to ants from southwestern Mexico , advise that their source population came from this region , ” Andrew Suarez , an entomology prof at the University of Illinois , said in a release . “ There was this very clear pattern where there was the most familial diversity in the New World , where it ’s aboriginal , and then you see these stepping stones of nested subset of diversity as you move off from the New World into the Old World . ”
The cogitation shows just how useful analyse genetic information can be when looking for patterns in how mintage have dispersed . “ Uncovering upshot that pass off long ago , before the long time of digital trailing computer code and customs duty enforcement , is often a unmanageable undertaking , " University of Vermont biology prof Sara Helms Cahan say . " Luckily for us , however , it turns out that incursive coinage keep their own track record of their account , encode in their genome . "
