Further Evidence of Population Admixture in the Serbian Honey Bee Population

Abstract

Socioeconomic interests and beekeeper preferences have often taken precedence over the conservation of locally native honey bee subspecies, leading to the predominance of admixture populations in human-dominated areas. To assess the genetic diversity of contemporary managed Serbian honey bee colonies, we used 14 microsatellite loci and analyzed 237 worker bees from 46 apiaries in eight localities of northern and southern Serbia. Furthermore, we compared data for nine microsatellite loci with 338 individuals from Italy, Hungary, Poland, and Spain. The standard parameters of genetic diversity in Serbian honey bee populations were in line with other analyses, although somewhat smaller. STRUCTURE analysis showed the existence of two equally distributed genetic clusters and Analysis of molecular variances could not confirm the presence of a geographically discrete population but showed local differences. Discriminant analysis of principal components showed overlapping of worker bees from different parts of Serbia. Clear genetic differentiation can be observed when comparing all populations between geographical regions and their corresponding subspecies. The absence of the A. m. macedonica subspecies from its historical distribution range in southern Serbia as well as the lack of distinctive geographical groups suggest that selective breeding, queen import, and migratory beekeeping practices strongly influence the genetic structure and diversity of honey bees, leading to the genetic uniformization and creation of the admixture population.

Urban ecosystem drives genetic diversity in feral honey bee

“…Microsatellite analysis showed that, compared to all other types of colonies analysed in Serbia, FCs in most cases have higher values for different parameters of genetic diversity. Results based on the analysis of 14 microsatellite loci show that when FCs are compared with MCs from Belgrade and the Serbian countryside 57 , in most cases they possess higher values of genetic diversity parameters. These results are not entirely unexpected—from the last decades of the twentieth century, commercial beekeeping has dominated in Serbia and has completely suppressed more sustainable traditional ways.…”

“…These results are not entirely unexpected—from the last decades of the twentieth century, commercial beekeeping has dominated in Serbia and has completely suppressed more sustainable traditional ways. Modern beekeeping practices, such as commercial breeding, the introduction of non-native queens and colony trade, selection and migratory beekeeping, rapidly change the genetic diversity of managed honey bees in Serbia 40 , 57 – 59 . A similar impact of migratory beekeeping and honey bee trade on the genetic diversity of managed honey bees has been observed in Turkey with the admixture of different subspecies and local honey bee populations of Anatolia and Thrace 60 .…”

“…The queen trade is very intensive in this region, and introductions of queens of different origins, not locally adapted, could be the source of the less relatedness detected for MCs (Table 2 ). Additionally, gene flow derived from extensive beekeeping mobility may also contribute to changes in the genetic pool of managed honey bee populations and drive the loss of their genetic diversity, since particularly rare alleles are lost in a reduced gene pool 57 , 60 – 62 .…”

“…For the comparison with other localities in Serbia, we used data from 241 samples from 46 apiaries from the countryside published in 40 and 57 .…”

“…For comparison of different honey bee colonies at the autosomal level, we used the 14 most frequent microsatellite loci previously published in various studies. A detailed primer list and primer specification, together with a comprehensive protocol description, can be found in 57 .…”