SPECIAL ISSUE: INVASION GENETICS: THE BAKER AND STEBBINS LEGACY Relationship between invasion success and colony

Factors promoting the establishment and colonization success of introduced popula-tions in new environments constitute an important issue in biological invasions. In this context, the respective role of pre-adaptation and evolutionary changes during the invasion process is a key question that requires particular attention. This study com-pared the colony breeding structure (i.e. number and relatedness among reproductives within colonies) in native and introduced populations of the subterranean pest termite, Reticulitermes flavipes. We generated and analysed a data set of both microsatellite and mtDNA loci on termite samples collected in three introduced populations, one in France and two in Chile, and in the putative source population of French and Chilean infestations that has recently been identified in New Orleans, LA. We also provided a synthesis combining our results with those of previous studies to obtain a global pic-ture of the variation in breeding structure in this species. Whereas most native US populations are mainly composed of colonies headed by monogamous pairs of primary reproductives, all introduced populations exhibit a particular colony breeding structur