A DNA barcoding method for identifying and quantifying the composition of pollen species collected by European honeybees, Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

The European honeybee, Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera: Apidae), is the most important crop pollinator, and there is an urgent need for a sustained supply of honeybee colonies. Understanding the availability of pollen resources around apiaries throughout the brood-rearing season is crucial to increas...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied entomology and zoology 2018-08, Vol.53 (3), p.353-361
Main Authors: Kamo, Tsunashi, Kusumoto, Yoshinobu, Tokuoka, Yoshinori, Okubo, Satoru, Hayakawa, Hiroshi, Yoshiyama, Mikio, Kimura, Kiyoshi, Konuma, Akihiro
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agriculture
Apidae
Apis mellifera
Applied Ecology
Bees
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Colonies
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
Entomology
Environmental Management
Genera
Hymenoptera
Life Sciences
Original Research Paper
Plant Pathology
Pollen
Species composition
Zoology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The European honeybee, Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera: Apidae), is the most important crop pollinator, and there is an urgent need for a sustained supply of honeybee colonies. Understanding the availability of pollen resources around apiaries throughout the brood-rearing season is crucial to increasing the number of colonies. However, detailed information on the floral resources used by honeybees is limited due to a scarcity of efficient methods for identifying pollen species composition. Therefore, we developed a DNA barcoding method for identifying the species of each pollen pellet and for quantifying the species composition by summing the weights of the pellets for each species. To establish the molecular biological protocol, we analyzed 1008 pellets collected between late July and early September 2016 from five hives placed in a forest/agricultural landscape of Hokkaido, northern Japan. Pollen was classified into 31 plant taxa, of which 29 were identified with satisfactory discrimination (25 species and 4 genera) using trnL - trnF and ITS2 as DNA barcoding regions together with available floral and phenological information. The remaining two taxa were classified to the species level using other DNA barcoding regions. Of the 1008 pollen pellets tested, 1005 (99.7%) were successfully identified. As an example of the use of this method, we demonstrated the change in species composition of pollen pellets collected each week for 9 weeks from the same hive.
ISSN:0003-6862
1347-605X
DOI:10.1007/s13355-018-0565-9