Exploring genomic signatures of modern apiculture in the western honeybee (Apis mellifera)

驯化是一种适应性进化过程，其中一个物种，驯化者，操纵伙伴物种的环境，驯化者，从后者那里获得服务，驯化者在操纵的环境中向更高的适应度和更高的服务提供率进化。西方蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）是一种重要的传粉者、蜂蜜生产者，也是神经生物学、社会生物学和遗传学的模式生物。然而，除了几千年来在养蜂蜂箱中进行管理外，野生蜂群仍然占世界蜜蜂种群的很大一部分。由于管理蜜蜂面临的（自然）环境暴露程度高于其他牲畜物种，管理和野生种群之间的基因流动控制有限，因此通常不清楚管理蜜蜂是否或在何种程度上受到驯化。该项目的目标是汇集来自世界多个地区的野生和管理蜜蜂种群的配对样本，并使用个体池测序（Pool-seq）获得每个种群的全基因组单核苷酸多态性（SNP）信息。基因组数据的比较将使我们能够推断现代养蜂管理和野生条件下的选择压力是否足以产生功能性（即，适应性）管理和野生蜜蜂种群之间的遗传差异。研究结果将为现代养蜂业是否可以被视为真正的驯化过程以及养蜂是否可能影响蜜蜂在自然条件下的健康提供见解。这一信息与养蜂、野生传粉者保护和使用蜜蜂作为模式生物的研究人员有关。

Domestication is an adaptive evolutionary process in which one species, the domesticator, manipulates the environment of a partner species, the domesticate, to retrieve a service from the latter, and the domesticate evolves towards higher fitness and higher rates of service provision in the manipulated environment. The western honeybee (Apis mellifera) is highly valued as a managed pollinator, honey producer, and model organism for neurobiology, sociobiology, and genetics. However, besides being managed in beekeeping hives since millennia, wild colonies still make up a large fraction of the world’s honeybee population. Since managed honeybees face a higher degree of exposure to the (natural) environment than other livestock species and there is limited control of gene flow between managed and wild populations, it is generally unclear whether, or to which degree, managed honeybees are under domestication. The objective of this project is to bring together paired sampled of wild and managed honeybee populations from multiple regions around the world, and obtain genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) information of each population using sequencing of pools of individuals (Pool-seq). The comparison of genomic data will allow us to infer whether selection pressures under modern beekeeping management and under wild conditions differ sufficiently to produce functional (i.e., adaptive) genetic differences between managed and wild honeybee populations. The results will provide insights into whether modern apiculture can generally be regarded as a true domestication process and whether beekeeping is likely to affect the fitness of honeybees under natural conditions. This information is relevant for apiculture, wild pollinator conservation, and researchers using honeybees as a model organism.