The worldwide expansion of the Argentine ant

Biological invasions by non-indigenous species are widely recognized as a significant component of human-caused global environmental change, often resulting in a significant loss in the economic value, biological diversity and function of invaded ecosystems (Elton, 1958; D’Antonio & Vitousek, 1992; Lodge, 1993; Vitousek et al., 1996, 1997). Studies of the phylogeographic structure (Stone & Sunnucks, 1993; Bastrop et al., 1998; Blum et al., 2007; Taylor & Keller, 2007), genetic Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Biophore, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, Centre for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark