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Insects
Special Issues
Population Genetics of Honeybees
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Population Genetics of Honeybees

A special issue of Insects (ISSN 2075-4450). This special issue belongs to the section "Insect Societies and Sociality".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 February 2023) | Viewed by 4235

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Junichi Takahashi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Life Sciences, Kyoto Sangyo University, Kyoto 603-8555, Japan
Interests: honeybee; hornet; bumblebee; social insect; microsatellite; mitochondrial DNA; conservational genetics; apiculture

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Honeybee is an important bioresource and model organism for eusociality. The genus Apis is currently classified into nine to eleven species, and some of these species further diverge into subspecies. Basic approaches such as morphological or genetic comparisons have been examined historically, but the classification is still confusing.

With the recent development of genome sequencing technology, the use of large-scale genetic information is becoming the mainstream of diversity studies. Approaches using mitochondrial genomes are increasing, and this leads to reexaminations of phylogenetic classification at the inter-specific level. In intra-specific level analyses, whole-genome SNPs provide insight into population history and adaptation mechanisms mainly in the western honeybee (A. mellifera) and eastern honeybee (A. cerana).

Honeybee has wide-range distributions on a global scale, and the knowledge of local populations is essential for the development of the related research fields. Especially, research on the honeybee from Asian countries is lacking compared to that of the western honeybee, A. mellifera. We hence welcome submissions of articles focusing on the population genetics of honeybee species from Asia using complete mitochondrial genome sequences, whole-genome SNPs (e.g., RAD, MIG-seq or Re-seq), and multiplex microsatellite markers (more than eight locus).

Dr. Junichi Takahashi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Insects is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • complete mitochondrial genome sequences
  • whole-genome SNPs (e.g., RAD, MIG-seq or Re-seq)
  • multiplex microsatellite markers (more than eight loci)

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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22 pages, 5899 KiB  
Article
When One’s Not Enough: Colony Pool-Seq Outperforms Individual-Based Methods for Assessing Introgression in Apis mellifera mellifera
by Victoria G. Buswell, Jonathan S. Ellis, J. Vanessa Huml, David Wragg, Mark W. Barnett, Andrew Brown, The Scottish Beekeepers Association Citizen Science Group and Mairi E. Knight
Insects 2023, 14(5), 421; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects14050421 - 27 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2216
Abstract
The human management of honey bees (Apis mellifera) has resulted in the widespread introduction of subspecies outside of their native ranges. One well known example of this is Apis mellifera mellifera, native to Northern Europe, which has now been significantly [...] Read more.
The human management of honey bees (Apis mellifera) has resulted in the widespread introduction of subspecies outside of their native ranges. One well known example of this is Apis mellifera mellifera, native to Northern Europe, which has now been significantly introgressed by the introduction of C lineage honey bees. Introgression has consequences for species in terms of future adaptive potential and long-term viability. However, estimating introgression in colony-living haplodiploid species is challenging. Previous studies have estimated introgression using individual workers, individual drones, multiple drones, and pooled workers. Here, we compare introgression estimates via three genetic approaches: SNP array, individual RAD-seq, and pooled colony RAD-seq. We also compare two statistical approaches: a maximum likelihood cluster program (ADMIXTURE) and an incomplete lineage sorting model (ABBA BABA). Overall, individual approaches resulted in lower introgression estimates than pooled colonies when using ADMIXTURE. However, the pooled colony ABBA BABA approach resulted in generally lower introgression estimates than all three ADMIXTURE estimates. These results highlight that sometimes one individual is not enough to assess colony-level introgression, and future studies that do use colony pools should not be solely dependent on clustering programs for introgression estimates. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Population Genetics of Honeybees)
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10 pages, 709 KiB  
Article
Drones Do Not Drift between Nests in a Wild Population of Apis cerana
by Thomas Hagan, Julianne Lim and Rosalyn Gloag
Insects 2023, 14(4), 323; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects14040323 - 27 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1546
Abstract
The modes through which individuals disperse prior to reproduction has important consequences for gene flow in populations. In honey bees (Apis sp.), drones (males) reproduce within a short flight range of their natal nest, leaving and returning each afternoon within a narrow [...] Read more.
The modes through which individuals disperse prior to reproduction has important consequences for gene flow in populations. In honey bees (Apis sp.), drones (males) reproduce within a short flight range of their natal nest, leaving and returning each afternoon within a narrow mating window. Drones are assumed to return to their natal nests as they depend on workers to feed them. However, in apiaries, drones are reported to regularly make navigation errors and return to a non-natal nest, where they are accepted and fed by unrelated workers. If such a “drone drift” occurred in wild populations, it could facilitate some further degree of dispersal for males, particularly if drones drift into host nests some distance away from their natal nest. Here, we investigated whether drone drift occurs in an invasive population of the Asian honey bee (Apis cerana). Based on the genotypes of 1462 drones from 19 colonies, we found only a single drone that could be considered a candidate drifter (~0.07%). In three other colonies, drones whose genotypes differed from the inferred queen were best explained by recent queen turnover or worker-laying. We concluded that drone drift in this population is low at best, and A. cerana drones either rarely make navigation errors in wild populations or are not accepted into foreign nests when they do so. We therefore confirm that drone dispersal distance is limited to the distance of daily drone flights from natal nests, a key assumption of both colony density estimates based on sampling of drone congregation areas and population genetic models of gene flow in honey bees. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Population Genetics of Honeybees)
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