The Colony of Virginia, the location of the Jamestown Settlement (the first permanent English settlement in the Americas), was the most populous southern colony or state in the region until it was partitioned into Virginia and West Virginia during the American Civil War. Virginia was also the most populous of the Thirteen Colonies throughout most of the Colonial Era. In terms of ethnicity, the southern colonies had the largest relative Black populations, with South Carolina even becoming majority-Black in the 1710s.

For most of the colonial period, Virginia was the most populous of the Thirteen Colonies, apart from when it was overtaken by Massachusetts between 1710 and 1740. The Plymouth colony was one of the first permanent settlements in what would become the United States, but is not included as one of the Thirteen Colonies as it was incorporated into Massachusetts in 1691.

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Factors promoting the establishment and colonization success of introduced populations 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 compared 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 picture 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 structure that is characterized by hundreds of inbreeding reproductives (neotenics) and by a propensity of colonies to fuse, a pattern shared uniquely with the population of New Orleans. These characteristics are comparable to those of many invasive ants and are discussed to play an important role during the invasion process. Our finding that the New Orleans population exhibits the same breeding structure as its related introduced populations suggests that this native population is pre-adapted to invade new ranges.

The soybean looper, Chrysodeixis includens (Walker) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is a ubiquitous pest species distributed across most parts of North and South America. This species has high population densities in southern and eastern USA where it is considered a serious pest causing heavy losses in field crops such as soybeans and some vegetable crops. Soybean loopers are polyphagous and known to feed on 174 plant species across 39 families. A large number of soybean looper host plants are in the families Amaranthaceae, Asteraceae, Brassicaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Fabaceae, Lamiaceae, Malvaceae, Poaceae, and Solanaceae. Soybean is one of the most preferred hosts of this insect providing optimum conditions for feeding and oviposition. Development of insecticide resistance in soybean looper is a major concern for farmers in devising management tactics for this pest. Soybean looper has already developed resistance to almost all classes of insecticides that include carbamates, cyclodienes, organochlorines (DDT), organophosphates, and pyrethroids. The carbohydrazide insecticide methoxyfenozide (an insect growth regulator) was the recommended insecticide for the soybean looper in Mississippi prior to approval of diamide insecticides such as flubendiamide and chlorantraniliprole. Failures in controlling soybean looper with methoxyfenozide were reported in some areas in mid-South in 2009 and 2010. Sporadic control failures with diamide insecticides have been reported for soybean looper. Control failures may indicate low frequencies of mutations conferring resistance in the diamide target, the ryanodine receptor. Although field failures of diamides in controlling soybean looper were reported in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Puerto Rico in 2014, no confirmation or published reports are available to date. However, this does not indicate absence of alleles in field populations that may give rise to resistance in the future. Our goals in this study are to 1) sequence and assembled the soybean looper genome to develop genomic and transcriptomic resources, 2) develop and validate a genetic marker set to conduct population genetic studies and to estimate frequencies of alleles linked to genetic loci conferring resistance to major insecticides (e.g. voltage-gated sodium channel, ryanodine receptor, cytochrome P450 genes, glutathione transferases, nicotinic acetylcholinesterase (nACh) receptor), and 3) conduct field surveys to establish baseline population genetic data for soybean looper.