SNP test to identify Africanized honeybees via proportion of ‘African’ ancestry

The honeybee, Apis mellifera, is the world's most important pollinator and is ubiquitous in most agricultural ecosystems. Four major evolutionary lineages and at least 24 subspecies are recognized. Commercial populations are mainly derived from subspecies originating in Europe (75–95%). The Afr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Molecular ecology resources 2015-11, Vol.15 (6), p.1346-1355
Main Authors: Chapman, Nadine C., Harpur, Brock A., Lim, Julianne, Rinderer, Thomas E., Allsopp, Michael H., Zayed, Amro, Oldroyd, Benjamin P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Africa
Africanized honeybee
Americas
ancestry
Animals
Apis mellifera
Australia
Bees - classification
Bees - genetics
breed identification
Europe
Genotype
Genotyping Techniques - methods
Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
single nucleotide polymorphisms
United States
Varroa destructor
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Summary:The honeybee, Apis mellifera, is the world's most important pollinator and is ubiquitous in most agricultural ecosystems. Four major evolutionary lineages and at least 24 subspecies are recognized. Commercial populations are mainly derived from subspecies originating in Europe (75–95%). The Africanized honeybee is a New World hybrid of A. m. scutellata from Africa and European subspecies, with the African component making up 50–90% of the genome. Africanized honeybees are considered undesirable for bee‐keeping in most countries, due to their extreme defensiveness and poor honey production. The international trade in honeybees is restricted, due in part to bans on the importation of queens (and semen) from countries where Africanized honeybees are extant. Some desirable strains from the United States of America that have been bred for traits such as resistance to the mite Varroa destructor are unfortunately excluded from export to countries such as Australia due to the presence of Africanized honeybees in the USA. This study shows that a panel of 95 single nucleotide polymorphisms, chosen to differentiate between the African, Eastern European and Western European lineages, can detect Africanized honeybees with a high degree of confidence via ancestry assignment. Our panel therefore offers a valuable tool to mitigate the risks of spreading Africanized honeybees across the globe and may enable the resumption of queen and bee semen imports from the Americas.
ISSN:1755-098X
1755-0998
DOI:10.1111/1755-0998.12411