Molecular characterization of <i>Apis mellifera</i> colonies from Argentina: genotypic admixture associated with ecoclimatic regions and apicultural activities

Agra, Marcelo Nicolás; Conte, Claudia Alejandra; Corva, P. M.; Cladera, Jorge Luis; Lanzavecchia, Silvia Beatriz; Palacio, Marí­a Alejandra

doi:10.1111/eea.12719

Cited by 17 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…The current geographic range of A ancestry in South America is broadly consistent with prior studies using a smaller number of genetic markers (e.g. [ 26 , 27 , 35 , 59 ]), though the geographic and genetic resolution of these studies is too limited for detailed comparison. In North America, we find that honey bees in California have up to 42% A ancestry in the south, tapering down to approximately 0% in Davis, our northernmost sampling site.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 79%

Selection and hybridization shaped the rapid spread of African honey bee ancestry in the Americas

et al. 2020

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Recent biological invasions offer ‘natural’ laboratories to understand the genetics and ecology of adaptation, hybridization, and range limits. One of the most impressive and well-documented biological invasions of the 20th century began in 1957 when Apis mellifera scutellata honey bees swarmed out of managed experimental colonies in Brazil. This newly-imported subspecies, native to southern and eastern Africa, both hybridized with and out-competed previously-introduced European honey bee subspecies. Populations of scutellata -European hybrid honey bees rapidly expanded and spread across much of the Americas in less than 50 years. We use broad geographic sampling and whole genome sequencing of over 300 bees to map the distribution of scutellata ancestry where the northern and southern invasions have presently stalled, forming replicated hybrid zones with European bee populations in California and Argentina. California is much farther from Brazil, yet these hybrid zones occur at very similar latitudes, consistent with the invasion having reached a climate barrier. At these range limits, we observe genome-wide clines for scutellata ancestry, and parallel clines for wing length that span hundreds of kilometers, supporting a smooth transition from climates favoring scutellata -European hybrid bees to climates where they cannot survive winter. We find no large effect loci maintaining exceptionally steep ancestry transitions. Instead, we find most individual loci have concordant ancestry clines across South America, with a build-up of somewhat steeper clines in regions of the genome with low recombination rates, consistent with many loci of small effect contributing to climate-associated fitness trade-offs. Additionally, we find no substantial reductions in genetic diversity associated with rapid expansions nor complete dropout of scutellata ancestry at any individual loci on either continent, which suggests that the competitive fitness advantage of scutellata ancestry at lower latitudes has a polygenic basis and that scutellata -European hybrid bees maintained large population sizes during their invasion. To test for parallel selection across continents, we develop a null model that accounts for drift in ancestry frequencies during the rapid expansion. We identify several peaks within a larger genomic region where selection has pushed scutellata ancestry to high frequency hundreds of kilometers past the present cline centers in both North and South America and that may underlie high-fitness traits driving the invasion.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 79%

Selection and hybridization shaped the rapid spread of African honey bee ancestry in the Americas

et al. 2020

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“…The underlying maps were created by plotting geographic data from the CIA World DataBank II [56] in R [57] using ggplot [58] geographic range of A ancestry in South America is broadly consistent with prior studies using a smaller number of genetic markers (e.g. [26,27,35,59]), though the geographic and genetic resolution of these studies is too limited for detailed comparison. In North America, we find that honey bees in California have up to 42% A ancestry in the south, tapering down to approximately 0% in Davis, our northernmost sampling site.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, the expected impact of scutellata ancestry on agriculture and queen bee production in the United States is still poorly defined. Broad surveys show that scutellata-like mtDNA and phenotypes are common in northern Argentina and the southern US, and drop off towards more temperate latitudes, indicating that the rapid spread of these traits has dramatically slowed, if not stopped, on both continents [23,[26][27][28][29][30][31]. However, we lack a genome-wide view of the range limits of scutellata ancestry and do not know whether individual high-fitness alleles have already introgressed into higher latitudes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selection and hybridization shaped the rapid spread of African honey bee ancestry in the Americas

Calfee

Agra

Palacio

et al. 2020

Preprint

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AbstractRecent biological invasions offer ‘natural’ laboratories to understand the genetics and ecology of adaptation, hybridization, and range limits. One of the most impressive and well-documented biological invasions of the 20th century began in Brazil with the escape of introduced African honey bees (Apis mellifera scutellata) in 1957. In less than 50 years, populations of ‘Africanized’ honey bees spread across much of the Americas, hybridizing with and outcompeting resident European honey bees. We use broad geographic sampling and whole genome sequencing of over 300 bees to map the distribution of African ancestry where the northern and southern invasions have presently stalled, forming replicated hybrid zones between Africanized and European bees in California and Argentina. California is much farther from Brazil, yet these hybrid zones occur at very similar latitudes, consistent with the invasion having reached a climate barrier. At these range limits, we observe genome-wide clines for African ancestry, and parallel clines for wing length that span hundreds of kilometers, supporting a smooth transition from climates favoring Africanized bees to climates where they cannot survive winter. We find no large effect loci maintaining exceptionally steep ancestry transitions. Instead, we find most individual loci have concordant ancestry clines across South America, with a build-up of somewhat steeper clines in regions of the genome with low recombination rates, consistent with many loci of small effect contributing to climate-associated fitness trade-offs. Additionally, we find no substantial reductions in genetic diversity associated with rapid expansions nor complete dropout of African ancestry at any individual loci on either continent, which suggests that the competitive fitness advantage of African ancestry at lower latitudes has a polygenic basis and that Africanized bees maintained large population sizes during their invasion. To test for parallel selection across continents, we develop a null model that accounts for drift in ancestry frequencies during the rapid expansion. We identify several peaks within a larger genomic region where selection has pushed African ancestry to high frequency hundreds of kilometers past the present cline centers in both North and South America and that may underlie high-fitness African traits driving the invasion.Author SummaryCrop pollination around the world relies on local honey bee populations, which vary in their behaviors and climatic ranges. Africanized honey bees (‘killer bees’) have been some of the most widely successful; originating in a 1950s experimental breeding program in Brazil, they rapidly came to dominate across most of the Americas. As a recent genetic mixture of imported African bees and European subspecies, Africanized honey bees have a patchwork of ancestry across their genomes, which we leverage to identify loci with an excess of African or European ancestry due to selection. We additionally use the natural replication in this invasion to compare outcomes between North and South America (California and Argentina). We identify several genomic regions with exceptionally high African ancestry across continents and that may underlie favored Africanized bee traits (e.g. Varroa mite resistance). We find evidence that a climatic barrier has dramatically slowed the invasion at similar latitudes on both continents. African-to-European ancestry transition zones span hundreds of kilometers where bees have intermediate African ancestry proportions, which can be used to map the genetic basis of segregating traits (here, wing length), and calls into question the biological basis for binary Africanized vs. European bee classifications.

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“…Despite the European mitochondrial lineage of our stocks, as the analyzed region represents a hybrid zone where Africanized and European honey bee populations coexist (Agra et al, 2018), our stock may be a local ecotype that carries genes from both origins. In fact, we observed differences in the temperament of the stocks during field monitoring, with more excitable behavior in M than in C workers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The restriction fragments were separated on 4% (wt/v) agarose gels, stained with GelRed, and photographed under UV light. The mt haplotypes detected in the restriction analysis using HinfI were assigned as previously described by Agra et al (2018).…”

Section: Genetic Characterization Of Stocksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grooming Behavior in Naturally Varroa-Resistant Apis mellifera Colonies From North-Central Argentina

Russo

Liendo

Landi³

et al. 2020

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Molecular characterization of Apis mellifera colonies from Argentina: genotypic admixture associated with ecoclimatic regions and apicultural activities

Cited by 17 publications

References 62 publications

Selection and hybridization shaped the rapid spread of African honey bee ancestry in the Americas

Selection and hybridization shaped the rapid spread of African honey bee ancestry in the Americas

Selection and hybridization shaped the rapid spread of African honey bee ancestry in the Americas

Grooming Behavior in Naturally Varroa-Resistant Apis mellifera Colonies From North-Central Argentina

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