The Conservation of Native Honey Bees Is Crucial

Réquier, Fabrice; Garnery, Lionel; Kohl, Patrick L.; Njovu, Henry K.; Pirk, Christian Walter Werner; Crewe, Robin M.; Steffan‐Dewenter, Ingolf

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2019.04.008

Cited by 128 publications

(113 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…It would be interesting to test whether there is variation in the distance dialects among honeybee colonies originating from various sites along landscape transition zones. Given the widespread beekeeper-mediated hybridization of geographically distant lineages of the western honeybee, A. mellifera [7,52], an applied research question is to what extent the dance dialects of this species are getting disconnected from the environments to which they are adapted. A large proportion of honeybee colonies used by beekeepers today are hybrids of several subspecies (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive evolution of honeybee dance dialects

et al. 2020

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Efficient communication is highly important for the evolutionary success of social animals. Honeybees (genus Apis) are unique in that they communicate the spatial information of resources using a symbolic 'language', the waggle dance. Different honeybee species differ in foraging ecology but it remains unknown whether this shaped variation in the dance. We studied distance dialects-interspecific differences in how waggle duration relates to flight distance-and tested the hypothesis that these evolved to maximize communication precision over the bees' foraging ranges. We performed feeder experiments with Apis cerana, A. florea and A. dorsata in India and found that A. cerana had the steepest dialect, i.e. a rapid increase in waggle duration with increasing feeder distance, A. florea had an intermediate, and A. dorsata had the lowest dialect. By decoding dances for natural food sites, we inferred that the foraging range was smallest in A. cerana, intermediate in A. florea and largest in A. dorsata. The inverse correlation between foraging range and dialect was corroborated when comparing six (sub)species across the geographical range of the genus including previously published data. We conclude that dance dialects constitute adaptations resulting from a trade-off between the spatial range and the spatial accuracy of communication.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive evolution of honeybee dance dialects

et al. 2020

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“…In Europe, the western honeybee Apis mellifera exhibits a dual nature as managed and wild species (Requier et al., ). Despite wild populations of A. mellifera being a threatened component of the native fauna, little attention has been paid to these populations (Kohl & Rutschmann, ; Requier et al., ). Currently, Apis mellifera is classified as 'data deficient' in the IUCN Red List of European bees due to a lack of information on wild populations (De la Rúa et al., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contribution of European forests to safeguard wild honeybee populations

Réquier

Paillet

Laroche³

et al. 2019

CONSERVATION LETTERS

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Recent studies reveal the use of tree cavities by wild honeybee colonies in European forests. This highlights the conservation potential of forests for a highly threatened component of the native entomofauna in Europe, but currently no estimate of potential wild honeybee population sizes exists. Here, we analyzed the tree cavity densities of 106 forest areas across Europe and inferred an expected population size of wild honeybees. Both forest and management types affected the density of tree cavities. Accordingly, we estimated that more than 80,000 wild honeybee colonies could be sustained in European forests. As expected, potential conservation hotspots were identified in unmanaged forests, and, surprisingly, also in other large forest areas across Europe. Our results contribute to the EU policy strategy to halt pollinator declines and reveal the potential of forest areas for the conservation of so far neglected wild honeybee populations in Europe. K E Y W O R D SApis mellifera, conservation, forest management, honeybees, native populations, protected forests, tree cav- ities, unmanaged broadleaved forestsThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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“…Secondly, A. mellifera is known to form larger colonies than A. cerana [22]. And thirdly, the native range of A. mellifera is also larger compared to A. cerana [25, 53, 54]. Our analysis clearly shows that the diversity within individual bees is much lower than the diversity found within their colonies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…4C ). Firstly, although A. cerana has long been used for honey production in Asia, A. mellifera differs from all other extant honey bee species by having been extensively transported around the globe by humans, for hundreds of years [25]. Thus, it is possible that humans have contributed to a mixing of locally adapted strains, thereby increasing diversity within colonies ( Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on molecular analysis, A. mellifera expanded into its native range (Africa, Europe, and Western Asia) approximately 300.000 years ago [20]. However, A. mellifera was recently re-introduced to Asia by humans [24, 25], thereby bringing not only the bees, but also their associated bacterial communities into close proximity, potentially resulting in a homogenization of their gut microbiota.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Vast differences in strain-level diversity in the gut microbiota of two closely related honey bee species

Ellegaard¹,

Suenami

Miyazaki

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Most bacterial species encompass strains with vastly different gene content. Strain diversity in microbial communities is therefore considered to be of functional importance. Yet, little is known about the extent to which related microbial communities differ in diversity at this level and which underlying mechanisms may constrain and maintain strain-level diversity. Here, we used shotgun metagenomics to characterize and compare the gut microbiota of two honey bee species, Apis mellifera and Apis cerana, which have diverged about 6 mio years ago. While both host species are colonized by largely overlapping bacterial 16S rRNA phylotypes, we find that their communities are highly host-specific when analyzed with genomic resolution. Despite their similar ecology, A. mellifera displayed a much higher extent of strain-level diversity and functional gene content in the microbiota than A. cerana, per colony and per individual bee. In particular, the gene repertoire for polysaccharide degradation was massively expanded in the microbiota of A. mellifera relative to A. cerana. Bee management practices, divergent ecological adaptation, or habitat size may have contributed to the observed differences in microbiota composition of these two key pollinator species. Our results illustrate that the gut microbiota of closely related animal hosts can differ vastly in genomic diversity despite sharing similar levels of diversity at the 16S rRNA gene. This is likely to have consequences for gut microbiota functioning and host-symbiont interactions, highlighting the need for metagenomic studies to understand the ecology and evolution of microbial communities.

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The Conservation of Native Honey Bees Is Crucial

Cited by 128 publications

References 66 publications

Adaptive evolution of honeybee dance dialects

Adaptive evolution of honeybee dance dialects

Contribution of European forests to safeguard wild honeybee populations

Vast differences in strain-level diversity in the gut microbiota of two closely related honey bee species

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