Title
Wing geometric morphometrics of workers and drones and single nucleotide polymorphisms provide similar genetic structure in the iberian honey bee (Apis mellifera iberiensis)
Date Issued
01 February 2020
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Henriques D.
Teixeira J.S.G.
Ferreira H.
Neves C.J.
Francoy T.M.
Pinto M.A.
Publisher(s)
MDPI AG
Abstract
Wing geometric morphometrics has been applied to honey bees (Apis mellifera) in identification of evolutionary lineages or subspecies and, to a lesser extent, in assessing genetic structure within subspecies. Due to bias in the production of sterile females (workers) in a colony, most studies have used workers leaving the males (drones) as a neglected group. However, considering their importance as reproductive individuals, the use of drones should be incorporated in these analyses in order to better understand diversity patterns and underlying evolutionary processes. Here, we assessed the usefulness of drone wings, as well as the power of wing geometric morphometrics, in capturing the signature of complex evolutionary processes by examining wing shape data, integrated with geographical information, from 711 colonies sampled across the entire distributional range of Apis mellifera iberiensis in Iberia. We compared the genetic patterns reconstructed from spatially-explicit shape variation extracted from wings of both sexes with that previously reported using 383 genome-wide SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms). Our results indicate that the spatial structure retrieved from wings of drones and workers was similar (r = 0.93) and congruent with that inferred from SNPs (r = 0.90 for drones; r = 0.87 for workers), corroborating the clinal pattern that has been described for A. m. iberiensis using other genetic markers. In addition to showing that drone wings carry valuable genetic information, this study highlights the capability of wing geometric morphometrics in capturing complex genetic patterns, offering a reliable and low-cost alternative for preliminary estimation of population structure.
Volume
11
Issue
2
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Genética, Herencia Zoología, Ornitología, Entomología, ciencias biológicas del comportamiento
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85079032722
Source
Insects
Sponsor(s)
Funding text Funding: This research was funded by the program COMPETE 2020 – POCI (Programa Operacional para a Competividade e Internacionalização) and by Portuguese funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) in the framework of the project BeeHappy (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029871). FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) provided funds for TMF (2011/07857-9) and JSGT (2011/02434-2).
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus