Adaptation of Invasive Species to Islands and the Puerto Rican Honey Bee

Abstract

Honey bees critically impact global food security as pollinators in agricultural systems worldwide (Aizen and Harder, 2009; Potts et al., 2016). They are also considered one of the most successful invasive organisms, having been transported by humans to all continents except for the Arctic and the Antarctic. However, along with other insects, they are increasingly under threat by anthropogenic activities (Wagner et al., 2021). We explored the adaptation of honey bees introduced by humans to the Americas.Africanized honey bees (AHB) are the product of human introduction of Apis mellifera scutellata bees from Africa to the Americas in 1956. These African bees later hybridized with European honey bees previously brought to the Americas and resulted in the hybrid AHB, infamous for their high defensive behavior and serious economic and ecological impact (reviewed in Guzman-Novoa et al.). The adaptation of AHB to the island of Puerto Rico, such as the reduced defensive behavior, provides insight into changes that can occur to invasive organisms and the invaded ecosystem after colonization (Rivera-Marchand et al., 2012; Avalos et al., 2017). An advantage of research focused on island populations is that adaptive processes on islands are accelerated and may readily show similar patterns across species. Examples of adaptations on islands include the breakdown of the usually observed mutualism between Cecropia trees and Azteca ants and the reduced aggression of Solenopsis geminata on Puerto Rico (Rivera-Marchand et al., 2012 and references therein). Thus, data from island populations can be particularly useful to develop and test models of invasion biology.This collection of research articles was inspired by the “Puerto Rico Honey Bees and Evolution of Invasive Organisms on Islands” conference, held in July 2019, in person, in Puerto Rico (PRHB, 2019). The focus of the conference was the Puerto Rico Gentle Africanized honey bee and other non-native organisms, through the lens of invasion biology and island biogeography. This Frontiers Research Topic broadens the scope of the conference presentations by including new organisms, data, and perspectives, in the post-pandemic world. Several articles were completed and submitted before the pandemic, and some produced under pandemic conditions, resulting in a collection of papers with publication dates in 2020 and 2021.This Frontiers Research Topic highlights the study of island invasion biology from the perspective of different disciplines and approaches, including genomics, morphology, behavior, ecology, and long-term data analyses. The result of this interdisciplinary approach is an examination of: 1. The invasive species on the island of Puerto Rico; 2. Ancestral populations of the invasives; 3. Adaptations of invasives and characteristics of Puerto Rico honey bees.