They have been colonizing Europe and North America for almost 50 years, creating thousands of nests in cities and suburban areas. We are talking about the Argentine parrots ( Myiopsitta monachus ), one of the most invasive bird species on the entire planet, which seem to come from the same and not very extensive geographical area of South America.
And it is that all invasive populations of this bird are genetically the same and are characterized by their relatively rare dominant haplotype in the original population, according to an international study in which Spanish scientists have participated.
On the one hand, hundreds of thousands of parrots have been imported for the pet trade in recent decades ; on the other, individuals from populations in the wild began to invade the United States in the 1960s and Europe in the 1980s.
However, these two independent groups come from the same region located between southern Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul), Entre Ríos (Argentina) and Uruguay, according to the aforementioned research, published in the journal Molecular Ecology .
Among its authors there are experts from the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC), the Pablo de Olavide University of Seville (UPO) and the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona, who analyzed information obtained from mitochondrial DNA to evaluate genetic variability of the Argentine parrot Myiopsitta monachus in the native zone of South America , and in three different invasion zones (North America, Europe and Africa).
Invasive alien species are a key driver of global change and one of the main causes of extinction of native species . Hence, the variables that determine the successful establishment of these species have been studied from different perspectives.
Genetic variability can be important , although there is no clear consensus and it is not well understood how variability in source populations and demographic processes influence the success of invasive species establishment.
The work, which unravels the history of the global invasion of the parrot, also found that North American and European parrots have less genetic diversity in their invasive populations than in native groups .
