We examine the origin of honey bee (
Apis mellifera
) populations in Kangaroo Island (Australia), Norfolk Island (Australia) and the Kingdom of Tonga using a highly polymorphic mitochondrial DNA ...region and a panel of 37 single nucleotide polymorphisms that assigns ancestry to three evolutionary lineages: Eastern Europe, Western Europe and Africa. We also examine inbreeding coefficients and genetic variation using microsatellites and mitochondrial sequencing. The honey bees of Kangaroo Island have a high proportion of Eastern European ancestry (90.2%), consistent with claims that they are of the subspecies
A. m. ligustica
. The honey bees of Norfolk Island also had a majority of ancestry from Eastern Europe (73.1%) with some contribution from Western Europe (21.2%). The honey bees of Tonga are mainly of Western European (70.3%) origin with some Eastern European ancestry (27.4%). Despite the suspected severe bottlenecks experienced by these island population, inbreeding coefficients were low.
We examine whether a panel of 37 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) has the same power as a more expensive panel of 95 SNPs to assign ancestry of honeybees (
Apis mellifera
) to three ancestral ...lineages. We selected SNPs using allele frequencies, such that poorly performing SNPs were excluded. We find that ancestry assignment is comparable between the two panels. Importation of bee semen from countries where Africanized bees are present into countries where Africanized bees are absent would be facilitated if small proportions of semen derived from Africanized drones can be reliably detected. We used the abbreviated panel to determine if semen from a single Africanized drone could be detected when mixed with the semen of 10, 20 or 40 non-Africanized drones. We found that the use of the 37 SNP test on a mixed sample would fail to detect the contribution of a single Africanized male. It is therefore important that the cadavers of the males contributing semen are individually tested.
With increased globalisation and homogenisation, the maintenance of genetic integrity in local populations of agriculturally important species is of increasing concern. The western honeybee (Apis ...mellifera) provides an interesting perspective as it is both managed and wild, with a large native range and much larger introduced range. We employed a newly created 95 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) test to characterise the genetic ancestry of the Australian commercial and feral honeybee populations. We found that most individuals were hybrids of mainly Western and Eastern European ancestry. Introductions of bees from North Africa are known from the historical record, and we show here the presence of alleles of African ancestry in some Australian bees, at levels comparable to those seen in the commercial populations of European-derived bees in North America.
Field and simplified techniques for identifying Africanized and European honey bees Rinderer, T.E. (United States Department of Agriculture, Baton Rouge (USA). Agricultural Research Service, Honey Bee Breeding Genetics and Physiology Research); Sylvester, H.A; Brown, M.A ...
Apidologie,
(1986), 1986, 19860101, Letnik:
17, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
In the Americas, almost all colonies of Africanized and European honey bees that are building their own comb can be identified in the field, by measuring the distance spanned by 10 worker cells. ...Discriminant analysis of worker bee morphometric characteristics can be used to identify bees which are not producing their own comb. The simplest analysis uses measurements of fore-wing length and correctly identified 86% of 86 Africanized and 50 European colonies, with no misidentifications. A multivariate analysis of fore-wing length, partial hind-wing length, femur length and "clean weight", correctly identified 91% of these samples, with no misidentifications. The formulae, constants and procedures for these analyses are provided.
Nepotism in the honey bee CARLIN, NORMAN F; FRUMHOFF, PETER C
Nature (London),
08/1990, Letnik:
346, Številka:
6286
Journal Article
Recenzirano
An apparent improvement was introduced by artificially inseminating a queen with drone sperm bearing heritable colour markers, yielding half-sibships visually distinguishable to the investigators ...(for example, refs 4-8). Because bees recognize relatives by olfaction, the colours themselves were usually assumed not to affect recognition responses. ...kin recognition can also be induced within ant colonies of artificial phenotypic heterogeneity. Given the apparent absence of kin recognition in natural colonies of ants and wasps, and the inconclusiveness of the evidence for honey bees, we would argue that adaptive nepotism among nestmates has still not been demonstrated in any social insect.
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