Allele Frequencies of Genetic Variants Associated with Varroa Drone Brood Resistance (DBR) in Apis mellifera Subspecies across the European Continent
2024
Lefebre, Regis | de Smet, Lina | Tehel, Anja | Paxton, Robert | Bossuyt, Emma | Verbeke, Wim | van Dooremalen, Coby | Ulgezen, Zeynep | van den Bosch, Trudy | Schaafsma, Famke | Valkenburg, Dirk-Jan | Dall’olio, Raffaele | Alaux, Cedric | Dezmirean, Daniel | Giurgiu, Alexandru | Capela, Nuno | Simões, Sandra | Sousa, José Paulo | Bencsik, Martin | Mcveigh, Adam | Ramsey, Michael Thomas | Ahmad, Sausan | Kumar, Tarun | Schäfer, Marc | Beaurepaire, Alexis | Moro, Arrigo | Flener, Claude | Matthijs, Severine | de Graaf, Dirk | Universiteit Gent = Ghent University = Université de Gand (UGENT) | Martin-Luther-Universität Halle Wittenberg - Martin-Luther-University Halle Wittenberg (MLU) | Wageningen University and Research [Wageningen] (WUR) | BeeSources | Abeilles et Environnement (AE) ; Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE) | University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj Napoca = Universitatea de Științe Agricole și Medicină Veterinară Cluj-Napoca | Universidade de Coimbra = University of Coimbra [Portugal] (UC) | Nottingham Trent University | Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI) | Universität Bern = University of Bern = Université de Berne (UNIBE)
International audience
显示更多 [+] 显示较少 [-]英语. Implementation of marker-assisted selection (MAS) in modern beekeeping would improve sustainability, especially in breeding programs aiming for resilience against the parasitic mite Varroa destructor. Selecting honey bee colonies for natural resistance traits, such as brood-intrinsic suppression of varroa mite reproduction, reduces the use of chemical acaricides while respecting local adaptation. In 2019, eight genomic variants associated with varroa non-reproduction in drone brood were discovered in a single colony from the Amsterdam Water Dune population in the Netherlands. Recently, a new study tested the applicability of these eight genetic variants for the same phenotype on a population-wide scale in Flanders, Belgium. As the properties of some variants varied between the two studies, one hypothesized that the difference in genetic ancestry of the sampled colonies may underly these contribution shifts. In order to frame this, we determined the allele frequencies of the eight genetic variants in more than 360 Apis mellifera colonies across the European continent and found that variant type allele frequencies of these variants are primarily related to the A. mellifera subspecies or phylogenetic honey bee lineage. Our results confirm that population-specific genetic markers should always be evaluated in a new population prior to using them in MAS programs.
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