Recent worldwide expansion of Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) in Apis mellifera populations inferred from multilocus patterns of genetic variation

•The population of N. ceranae in A. mellifera is likely to have a recent origin.•The population of N. ceranae infecting A. mellifera worldwide is very homogeneous.•The population of N. ceranae in A. mellifera has experienced a recent expansion.•There is evidence for genetic recombination in N. ceran...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Infection, genetics and evolution genetics and evolution, 2015-04, Vol.31, p.87-94
Main Authors: Gómez-Moracho, T., Bartolomé, C., Bello, X., Martín-Hernández, R., Higes, M., Maside, X.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Bees - parasitology
Demographic history
Diversity
Genes, Protozoan
Genetic Variation
Genetics, Population
Haplotypes
Multilocus Sequence Typing
Nosema - classification
Nosema - genetics
Nosema ceranae
Phylogeny
Polar tube proteins
Population structure
Recombination
Recombination, Genetic
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Summary:•The population of N. ceranae in A. mellifera is likely to have a recent origin.•The population of N. ceranae infecting A. mellifera worldwide is very homogeneous.•The population of N. ceranae in A. mellifera has experienced a recent expansion.•There is evidence for genetic recombination in N. ceranae.•A. mellifera shares N. ceranae haplotypes with A. cerana and A. florea. Nosema ceranae has been found infecting Apismellifera colonies with increasing frequency and it now represents a major threat to the health and long-term survival of these honeybees worldwide. However, so far little is known about the population genetics of this parasite. Here, we describe the patterns of genetic variation at three genomic loci in a collection of isolates from all over the world. Our main findings are: (i) the levels of genetic polymorphism (πS≈1%) do not vary significantly across its distribution range, (ii) there is substantial evidence for recombination among haplotypes, (iii) the best part of the observed genetic variance corresponds to differences within bee colonies (up to 88% of the total variance), (iv) parasites collected from Asian honeybees (Apis cerana and Apis florea) display significant differentiation from those obtained from Apismellifera (8–16% of the total variance, p
ISSN:1567-1348
1567-7257
DOI:10.1016/j.meegid.2015.01.002