Relatedness among honeybees (Apis mellifera) of a drone congregation

Abstract

The honeybee (Apis mellifera) queen mates during nuptial £ights, in the so-called drone congregation area where many males from surrounding colonies gather. Using 20 highly polymorphic microsatellite loci, we studied a sample of 142 drones captured in a congregation close to Oberursel (Germany). A parentage test based on lod score showed that this sample contained one group of four brothers, six groups of three brothers, 20 groups of two brothers and 80 singletons. These values are very close to a Poisson distribution. Therefore, colonies were apparently equally represented in the drone congregation, and calculations showed that the congregation comprised males that originated from about 240 di¡erent colonies. This ¢gure is surprisingly high. Considering the density of colonies around the congregation area and the average £ight range of males, it suggests that most colonies within the recruitment perimeter delegated drones to the congregation with an equal probability, resulting in an almost perfect panmixis. Consequently, the relatedness between a queen and her mates, and hence the inbreeding coe¤cient of the progeny, should be minimized. The relatedness among the drones mated to the same queen is also very low, maximizing the genetic diversity among the di¡erent patrilines of a colony.

A worldwide survey of genome sequence variation provides insight into the evolutionary history of the honeybee Apis mellifera

“…Higher N e estimates in Africa are consistent with other studies of genetic variation 16,19,20 , and the current population of wild African bees is known to be larger than the corresponding population in Europe 19 . However, the eusocial structure of honeybees is commonly believed to result in low N e values, and our estimates of N e are much higher than previous ones 21 . Our results suggest that mechanisms such as an extremely panmictic mating system and extensive geographic gene flow 22 maintain high levels of genetic variation in honeybee populations.…”

Male fitness of honeybee colonies (Apis mellifera L.)

“…So far it has been assumed that the number of drones rather than their individual mating success was most significant for colony male success (Baudry et al, 1998). Moreover, the main selective force at the colonial level was considered to be on the female side (Seeley, 1985).…”

“…This can only be determined if the queen genotypes of the colonies contributing to the male gene pool are known. Although highly variable DNA microsatellites have been developed for paternity analyses in honeybees (Estoup et al, 1993(Estoup et al, , 1994 it is virtually impossible to evaluate the reproductive success at colony level for honeybees under natural conditions, because the number of colonies contributing can be very high (Ruttner & Ruttner, 1972;Baudry et al 1998). In this study we therefore used a controlled experimental set-up on an isolated North Sea island, which was free of other honeybee colonies.…”

Population genetic structure of two primary parasitoids of Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera), Chelonus insularis and Campoletis sonorensis (Hymenoptera): to what extent is the host plant important?

“…Kinship analyses were performed by computing lod scores (Morton 1995), following methods used by Baudry et al (1998) and later by Cameron et al (2004). Calculations were done using KINSHIP 1.3.1 (Goodnight & Queller 1999; http://www.gsoftnet.us/GSoft.html) on populations with more than 15 individuals (males and females).…”