Morphological and morphometric analysis of the Italian honeybee (Apis mellifera ligustica) spermatozoa: a preliminary study in Campania region

Power, Karen A.; D’Anza, Emanuele; Martano, Manuela; Albarella, Sara; Ciotola, Francesca; Peretti, V.; Maiolino, Paola

doi:10.7243/2054-3425-6-2

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 18 publications

(15 reference statements)

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“…Compared to the past, in recent years, male hypofertility/infertility has been arousing greater interest, since malformations, genetic alterations, infectious diseases, food shortages, and managerial errors have been identified as responsible for a decreased reproductive capacity of many zootechnical species [33,34]. In a previous study [35], we had highlighted the existence of spermatozoa showing visible defects such as broken, split, and double tails. In this study, we describe the presence of alterations of the reproductive system in A. m. ligustica drones, regardless of the absence of macroscopic alterations, and we suggest that altered testes could probably be the cause of altered spermatozoa, that are unfit to swim up the oviducts, reach the spermatheca, and subsequently fertilize the egg.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Histopathological Findings in Testes from Apparently Healthy Drones of Apis mellifera ligustica

Power

Martano

Altamura

et al. 2020

Veterinary Sciences

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It is well known that factors acting on the decrease of population of honeybees, can act on the male and female reproductive system, compromising the fertility of queens and drones. While there are many studies on female fertility, only a few studies have focused on male fertility and the possible alterations of the reproductive system. The testes of 25 samples of adult drones of Apis mellifera ligustica were analyzed by histopathology using an innovative histological processing technique and the alterations that were found are here described. Most of the samples showed unaltered testes but, in some cases, samples showed degenerated seminiferous tubules, while others appeared immature. Although a limited number of samples were analyzed, the results obtained displayed that histopathological alterations of the testes exist also in honeybees and that more interest should be put to the matter, as honeybees could be considered as bioindicators for endocrine disruptors. Future studies on a larger number of samples are necessary to analyze how different environmental factors can act and induce alterations in the honeybee reproductive system.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Histopathological Findings in Testes from Apparently Healthy Drones of Apis mellifera ligustica

Power

Martano

Altamura

et al. 2020

Veterinary Sciences

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“…( 45 ) and Power et al . ( 42 ) showed high morphological variation in drone sperm. The authors reported a fairly high percentage of sperm with morphological defects, such as flipped tails (19.83%), broken tails (12.75%), double tails (6.42%), and double heads (2.25%) ( 47 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of honey bee sperm structures following the use of various staining techniques

Banaszewska

Andraszek

2023

Journal of Veterinary Research

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Introduction Bees are currently artificially inseminated on a large scale for breeding and research purposes. The sperm of bees has a complex and varied structure, and determination of specific morphological defects in it is very difficult. Its comprehensive analysis by inspecting morphology and morphometry is an important tool for improving honey bee lines. The staining technique should interfere with the cells as little as possible while clearly showing the boundaries of the head and other elements. In this study, a comparative analysis of the morphometry of sperm was performed with various techniques for staining drone semen. Material and Methods Semen was collected from 150 sexually mature Buckfast bee drones by artificially everting the copulatory organ. The morphology and morphometry of the sperm were assessed on slides prepared by three staining methods according to the protocols described online, using the Sperm Class Analyzer system. The lengths of the acrosome, nucleus, head in total, midpiece, tail without midpiece, tail with midpiece, and entire sperm were measured. Results The most details of the drone sperm structure could be seen when stained with the eosin-nigrosin complex. This method made it possible to identify all structures and revealed the uneven distribution of sperm proteins in different parts of the tail. With the Sperm Stain method fewer details of the sperm structure were recognisable, and the fewest were with SpermBlue. Conclusion The staining method, and thus the chemical reagents used, affect the dimensions of drone sperm. Given the great research potential of modified spermatozoa of insects, a standard for slide preparation for the evaluation of morphological and morphometric semen parameters should be established, as this would facilitate result comparison between laboratories and increase the value of morphological analysis of sperm for predicting and assessing fertility.

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“…Morphological characters have been used to determine the insect populations with both traditional and geometric morphometrics (Zhou et al, 2018;Power et al, 2019). For more than 10 years, geometric morphometrics have been widely used in determine the variation of honey bee populations (Francoy et al, 2008;Tofilski, 2008;Francoy et al, 2009;Kandemir et al, 2009;Özkan & Kandemir, 2010;Santoso et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determination of the wing morphology differentiation of old and recent honey bee samples from western Turkey using geometric morphometrics

Kösoğlu¹,

Tunca²,

Özsoy³

et al. 2021

Turkish Journal of Entomology

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In this study, old and recent honey bee, Apis mellifera L., 1758 (Hymenoptera: Apidae) specimens were compared using geometric morphometrics. The old honey bee samples were collected from different apiaries in Edirne, Balıkesir, Çanakkale, Denizli and Muğla Provinces, and Gökçeada (an Aegean island) in Turkey in 1987-1988 under a project of the Aegean Agricultural Research Institute and the recent samples were collected in the same locations in 2017. The mean values determined for each region were grouped using Mahalanobis distances, and the results were summarized on dendrogram. While the old samples constituted one group, the recent samples constituted another one. When the results of the discriminant function analysis were compared, it was observed that overall old and recent samples were statistically different from each other (P < 0.0001). The evaluation of both groups has revealed that the recent population of Gökçeada was different from morphologically the other mainland populations in the current situation. However, the Thrace (Edirne) honey bee specimens were different from the Anatolian (Çanakkale, Denizli, Balıkesir, Muğla) and island (Gökçeada) specimens in the past according to dendrogram relationships.

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Morphological and morphometric analysis of the Italian honeybee (Apis mellifera ligustica) spermatozoa: a preliminary study in Campania region

Cited by 9 publications

References 18 publications

Histopathological Findings in Testes from Apparently Healthy Drones of Apis mellifera ligustica

Histopathological Findings in Testes from Apparently Healthy Drones of Apis mellifera ligustica

Identification of honey bee sperm structures following the use of various staining techniques

Determination of the wing morphology differentiation of old and recent honey bee samples from western Turkey using geometric morphometrics

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