Genetic diversity of wild and managed honey bees ( Apis mellifera ) in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and prevalence of the
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Original article
Genetic diversity of wild and managed honey bees (Apis mellifera ) in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and prevalence of the microsporidian gut pathogens Nosema ceranae and N . apis Juliana RANGEL1 , Brenna TRAVER2 , Marla STONER2 , Alyssa HATTER2 , Brian TREVELLINE3 , Chris GARZA4 , Tonya SHEPHERD1 , Thomas D. SEELEY5 , John WENZEL6 1
Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University, 2475 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA Department of Biology, Penn State Schuylkill, 200 University Drive, Schuylkill Haven, PA 17972, USA 3 University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA 4 Houston Arboretum and Nature Center, Houston, TX 77024, USA 5 Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA 6 Powdermill Nature Reserve, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Rector, PA 15677, USA
2
Received 19 July 2019 – Revised 23 February 2020 – Accepted 30 March 2020
Abstract – The populations of wild honey bee (Apis mellifera ) colonies in the USA were decimated after the arrival of a parasitic mite Varroa destructor in the 1980s. However, in some places, wild honey bee colonies survived. In this 3-year study, we analyzed 32 wild and 11 managed colonies in Southwestern Pennsylvania for their maternal genetic ancestries and their levels of Nosema spp. infection. We detected nine mtDNA haplotypes in the 32 wild colonies sampled: six belonged to the Eastern European lineage (C) and three belonged to the Western European lineage (M). We found only three mtDNA haplotypes in the eleven managed colonies sampled, all belonging to the C lineage. Infection levels of N. ceranae were relatively high and fluctuated over time while those of N. apis remained relatively low and constant. There were no differences in N. ceranae or N. apis levels between wild and managed colonies. This study shows that wild honey bee colonies can represent old lineages despite being susceptible to Nosema . Apis mellifera / wild colonies / honey bees / haplotype / Nosema apis / Nosema ceranae / pathogens
1. INTRODUCTION The western honey bee, Apis mellifera , was introduced to North America by European settlers starting in the seventeenth century, mostly for honey production (Nogueira-Neto 1972; Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-020-00762-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Corresponding author: J. Rangel, [email protected] Handling Editor: Marina Meixner
Sheppard 1989). Because honey bees are not fully domesticated, swarms quickly escaped from the settler’s hives, moved into the wild, and established a population of wild colonies of “mixed European origin” belonging to the subspecies A. m. carnica , A. m. ligustica , and A. m. mellifera , among others, which spread across the temperate regions of the Americas. Today, wild honey bee colonies living in North America are hybrids of those subspecies that were introduced by the settlers (Moritz et al. 2007). In the USA, the populations of wild honey bee colonies were d
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