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Oleksa A, Căuia E, Siceanu A, Puškadija Z, Kovačić M, Pinto MA, Rodrigues PJ, Hatjina F, Charistos L, Bouga M, Prešern J, Kandemir İ, Rašić S, Kusza S, Tofilski A. Honey bee (Apis mellifera) wing images: a tool for identification and conservation. Gigascience 2023; 12:giad019. [PMID: 36971293 PMCID: PMC10041535 DOI: 10.1093/gigascience/giad019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2022] [Revised: 02/02/2023] [Accepted: 03/06/2023] [Indexed: 03/29/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is an ecologically and economically important species that provides pollination services to natural and agricultural systems. The biodiversity of the honey bee in parts of its native range is endangered by migratory beekeeping and commercial breeding. In consequence, some honey bee populations that are well adapted to the local environment are threatened with extinction. A crucial step for the protection of honey bee biodiversity is reliable differentiation between native and nonnative bees. One of the methods that can be used for this is the geometric morphometrics of wings. This method is fast, is low cost, and does not require expensive equipment. Therefore, it can be easily used by both scientists and beekeepers. However, wing geometric morphometrics is challenging due to the lack of reference data that can be reliably used for comparisons between different geographic regions. FINDINGS Here, we provide an unprecedented collection of 26,481 honey bee wing images representing 1,725 samples from 13 European countries. The wing images are accompanied by the coordinates of 19 landmarks and the geographic coordinates of the sampling locations. We present an R script that describes the workflow for analyzing the data and identifying an unknown sample. We compared the data with available reference samples for lineage and found general agreement with them. CONCLUSIONS The extensive collection of wing images available on the Zenodo website can be used to identify the geographic origin of unknown samples and therefore assist in the monitoring and conservation of honey bee biodiversity in Europe.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrzej Oleksa
- Department of Genetics, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz 85-090, Poland
| | - Eliza Căuia
- Honeybee Genetics and Breeding Laboratory, Institute for Beekeeping Research and Development, Bucharest 013975, Romania
| | - Adrian Siceanu
- Honeybee Genetics and Breeding Laboratory, Institute for Beekeeping Research and Development, Bucharest 013975, Romania
| | - Zlatko Puškadija
- Faculty of Agrobiotechnical Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Osijek 31000, Croatia
| | - Marin Kovačić
- Faculty of Agrobiotechnical Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Osijek 31000, Croatia
| | - M Alice Pinto
- Centro de Investigação de Montanha, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, Bragança 5300-253, Portugal
- Laboratório Associado para a Sustentabilidade e Tecnologia em Regiões de Montanha (SusTEC), Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, Bragança 5300-253, Portugal
| | - Pedro João Rodrigues
- Centre in Digitalization and Intelligent Robotics, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, Bragança 5300-253, Portugal
- Laboratório Associado para a Sustentabilidade e Tecnologia em Regiões de Montanha (SusTEC), Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, Bragança 5300-253, Portugal
| | - Fani Hatjina
- Department of Apiculture, Institute of Animal Science–Ellinikos Georgikos Organismos ‘DIMITRA’, Nea Moudania 63200, Greece
| | - Leonidas Charistos
- Department of Apiculture, Institute of Animal Science–Ellinikos Georgikos Organismos ‘DIMITRA’, Nea Moudania 63200, Greece
| | - Maria Bouga
- Lab of Agricultural Zoology and Entomology, Agricultural University of Athens, Athens 11855, Greece
| | - Janez Prešern
- Agricultural Institute of Slovenia, Ljubljana SI-1000, Slovenia
| | - İrfan Kandemir
- Ankara University, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Ankara University, Beşevler-Ankara 06100, Turkey
| | - Slađan Rašić
- Faculty of Ecological Agriculture, EDUCONS University, Sremska Kamenica 21208, Serbia
| | - Szilvia Kusza
- Centre for Agricultural Genomics and Biotechnology, University of Debrecen, Debrecen 4032, Hungary
| | - Adam Tofilski
- Department of Zoology and Animal Welfare, University of Agriculture in Krakow, Krakow 31-425, Poland
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Tofilski A, Căuia E, Siceanu A, Vișan GO, Căuia D. Historical Changes in Honey Bee Wing Venation in Romania. Insects 2021; 12:insects12060542. [PMID: 34200932 PMCID: PMC8230453 DOI: 10.3390/insects12060542] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2021] [Revised: 05/31/2021] [Accepted: 06/08/2021] [Indexed: 01/30/2023]
Abstract
Simple Summary Honey bees, in addition to producing honey, are important pollinators of wild and cultivated plants. Unfortunately, in some places, the population of honey bees is declining. One of the factors that affect their survival is adaptation to the local environment. Bees native to a particular area survive better than those imported. Despite this fact, some beekeepers import non-native bees and use them in their apiaries. Imported bees produce hybrids with bees from surrounding colonies because beekeepers do not control their mating. In consequence, the whole population can change. In this study, we verified how the population of Romanian bees has changed over the last four decades. We found significant temporal changes in wing venation. Despite these changes, the two major subpopulations of bees separated by mountains remain distinct. We provide a tool for the easy identification of native bees from Romania, which can help to protect them. Abstract The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is an ecologically and economically important species that provides pollination services to natural and agricultural systems. The biodiversity of the honey bee is being endangered by the mass import of non-native queens. In many locations, it is not clear how the local populations have been affected by hybridisation between native and non-native bees. There is especially little information about temporal changes in hybridisation. In Romania, A. m. carpatica naturally occurs, and earlier studies show that there are two subpopulations separated by the Carpathian Mountains. In this study, we investigated how the arrangement of veins in bees’ wings (venation) has changed in Romanian honey bees in the last four decades. We found that in the contemporary population of Romanian bees, there are still clear differences between the intra- and extra-Carpathian subpopulations, which indicates that natural variation among honey bees is still being preserved. We also found significant differences between bees collected before and after 2000. The observed temporal changes in wing venation are most likely caused by hybridisation between native bees and non-native bees sporadically introduced by beekeepers. In order to facilitate conservation and the monitoring of native Romanian bees, we developed a method facilitating their identification.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam Tofilski
- Department of Zoology and Animal Welfare, University of Agriculture in Krakow, Al. 29 Listopada 54, 31-425 Krakow, Poland
- Correspondence:
| | - Eliza Căuia
- Honeybee Genetics and Breeding Laboratory, Institute for Beekeeping Research and Development, Blv Ficusului, No. 42, Sector 1, 013975 Bucharest, Romania; (E.C.); (A.S.); (G.O.V.); (D.C.)
| | - Adrian Siceanu
- Honeybee Genetics and Breeding Laboratory, Institute for Beekeeping Research and Development, Blv Ficusului, No. 42, Sector 1, 013975 Bucharest, Romania; (E.C.); (A.S.); (G.O.V.); (D.C.)
| | - Gabriela Oana Vișan
- Honeybee Genetics and Breeding Laboratory, Institute for Beekeeping Research and Development, Blv Ficusului, No. 42, Sector 1, 013975 Bucharest, Romania; (E.C.); (A.S.); (G.O.V.); (D.C.)
| | - Dumitru Căuia
- Honeybee Genetics and Breeding Laboratory, Institute for Beekeeping Research and Development, Blv Ficusului, No. 42, Sector 1, 013975 Bucharest, Romania; (E.C.); (A.S.); (G.O.V.); (D.C.)
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Momeni J, Parejo M, Nielsen RO, Langa J, Montes I, Papoutsis L, Farajzadeh L, Bendixen C, Căuia E, Charrière JD, Coffey MF, Costa C, Dall'Olio R, De la Rúa P, Drazic MM, Filipi J, Galea T, Golubovski M, Gregorc A, Grigoryan K, Hatjina F, Ilyasov R, Ivanova E, Janashia I, Kandemir I, Karatasou A, Kekecoglu M, Kezic N, Matray ES, Mifsud D, Moosbeckhofer R, Nikolenko AG, Papachristoforou A, Petrov P, Pinto MA, Poskryakov AV, Sharipov AY, Siceanu A, Soysal MI, Uzunov A, Zammit-Mangion M, Vingborg R, Bouga M, Kryger P, Meixner MD, Estonba A. Authoritative subspecies diagnosis tool for European honey bees based on ancestry informative SNPs. BMC Genomics 2021; 22:101. [PMID: 33535965 PMCID: PMC7860026 DOI: 10.1186/s12864-021-07379-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/29/2020] [Accepted: 01/08/2021] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND With numerous endemic subspecies representing four of its five evolutionary lineages, Europe holds a large fraction of Apis mellifera genetic diversity. This diversity and the natural distribution range have been altered by anthropogenic factors. The conservation of this natural heritage relies on the availability of accurate tools for subspecies diagnosis. Based on pool-sequence data from 2145 worker bees representing 22 populations sampled across Europe, we employed two highly discriminative approaches (PCA and FST) to select the most informative SNPs for ancestry inference. RESULTS Using a supervised machine learning (ML) approach and a set of 3896 genotyped individuals, we could show that the 4094 selected single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) provide an accurate prediction of ancestry inference in European honey bees. The best ML model was Linear Support Vector Classifier (Linear SVC) which correctly assigned most individuals to one of the 14 subspecies or different genetic origins with a mean accuracy of 96.2% ± 0.8 SD. A total of 3.8% of test individuals were misclassified, most probably due to limited differentiation between the subspecies caused by close geographical proximity, or human interference of genetic integrity of reference subspecies, or a combination thereof. CONCLUSIONS The diagnostic tool presented here will contribute to a sustainable conservation and support breeding activities in order to preserve the genetic heritage of European honey bees.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jamal Momeni
- Eurofins Genomics Europe Genotyping A/S (EFEG), (Former GenoSkan A/S), Aarhus, Denmark.
| | - Melanie Parejo
- Laboratory Genetics, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Bilbao, Spain.,Swiss Bee Research Center, Agroscope, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Rasmus O Nielsen
- Eurofins Genomics Europe Genotyping A/S (EFEG), (Former GenoSkan A/S), Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Jorge Langa
- Laboratory Genetics, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Bilbao, Spain
| | - Iratxe Montes
- Laboratory Genetics, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Bilbao, Spain
| | - Laetitia Papoutsis
- Laboratory of Agricultural Zoology and Entomology, Agricultural University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - Leila Farajzadeh
- Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Christian Bendixen
- Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Eliza Căuia
- Institutul de Cercetare Dezvoltare pentru Apicultura SA, Bucharest, Romania
| | | | | | - Cecilia Costa
- CREA Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment, Bologna, Italy
| | | | | | | | - Janja Filipi
- Department of Ecology, Agronomy and Aquaculture, University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia
| | | | | | - Ales Gregorc
- Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia
| | | | - Fani Hatjina
- Department of Apiculture, Agricultural Organization 'DEMETER', Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Rustem Ilyasov
- Division of Life Sciences, Major of Biological Sciences, and Convergence Research Center for Insect Vectors, Incheon National University, Incheon, Korea.,Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Federal Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa, Russia
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - David Mifsud
- Division of Rural Sciences and Food Systems, Institute of Earth Systems, University of Malta, Msida, Malta
| | - Rudolf Moosbeckhofer
- Österreichische Agentur für Gesundheit und Ernährungssicherheit GmbH, Wien, Austria
| | - Alexei G Nikolenko
- Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Federal Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa, Russia
| | | | - Plamen Petrov
- Agricultural University of Plovdiv, Plovdiv, Bulgaria
| | - M Alice Pinto
- Centro de Investigação de Montanha (CIMO), Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal
| | - Aleksandr V Poskryakov
- Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Federal Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa, Russia
| | | | - Adrian Siceanu
- Institutul de Cercetare Dezvoltare pentru Apicultura SA, Bucharest, Romania
| | | | - Aleksandar Uzunov
- Landesbetrieb Landwirtschaft Hessen, Bee Institute Kirchhain, Kirchhain, Germany.,Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Food, University Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
| | | | - Rikke Vingborg
- Eurofins Genomics Europe Genotyping A/S (EFEG), (Former GenoSkan A/S), Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Maria Bouga
- Laboratory of Agricultural Zoology and Entomology, Agricultural University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - Per Kryger
- Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Slagelse, Denmark
| | - Marina D Meixner
- Landesbetrieb Landwirtschaft Hessen, Bee Institute Kirchhain, Kirchhain, Germany
| | - Andone Estonba
- Laboratory Genetics, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Bilbao, Spain.
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