# Review article on complete DNA analysis of wild and domestic bees



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

just downloaded the paper, looks like a 30+ pager, and something for perusement over the weekend.

did you glean anything noteworthy or of particular interest in there jwchestnut?


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

SP,
I thought the paper had a lot of "weasel" wording. I will review it once I shed my "partisan" mood, and recover some objectivity.

What did jump out to me was the repeated emphasis on the huge recombinant rate in honeybees -- and the ecological role that plays (viz a vis, solitary bees). 

Recombination is a two edged sword for domesticating "select" genetics - gives you the raw material, but ensures nothing happens easily.


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## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

"Genetic recombination is the production of offspring with combinations of traits that differ from those found in either parent." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_recombination

JWC if I understand well if I select for a lesser tendency to swarm from a mother less prone to swarm the swarming behaviour may be very different on the daughter. Is it an overly simple conclusion?


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

Eduardo Gomes said:


> "Genetic recombination is the production of offspring with combinations of traits that differ from those found in either parent." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_recombination
> 
> JWC if I understand well if I select for a lesser tendency to swarm from a mother less prone to swarm the swarming behaviour may be very different on the daughter. Is it an overly simple conclusion?


I think it is important to distinguish between high level synthetic characteristics (eg. "Swarming tendency") and recombination which happens at the level of single nucleotides or short segments of encoded proteins.

VSH has been correlated with odor detection proteins at specific places on a bee's antenna. Thus one of the many alleles at play in the VSH behavior could be a slightly improved odor detection protein created by the random recombination. Like a antigen in an immune system, the protein on the antenna could prove a more perfect match to the Varroa scent wafting from a cell. 

Fixing that one "fit" recombimination in the noisy environment of a billion other contending combination is a "hard" problem. 

As swarming tendency is a negative feedback on QMP -- perhaps a recombination that halves the synthesis of QMP by disabling one of the two chromosomes coding could produce a result... Seems unlikely to be that brittle though, genetics are conservative and robust.


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## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

JWChesnut said:


> I think it is important to distinguish between high level synthetic characteristics (eg. "Swarming tendency") and recombination which happens at the level of single nucleotides or short segments of encoded proteins.[…]
> As swarming tendency is a negative feedback on QMP -- perhaps a recombination that halves the synthesis of QMP by disabling one of the two chromosomes coding could produce a result... Seems unlikely to be that brittle though, genetics are conservative and robust.


I understand from your words that the path I and others are making to select from mothers less likely to swarm (that works at a "bigger level of encoding") is appropriate and is not undermined by the process of genetic recombination (that works at a "smaller level of encoding") . Thank you JW for your very clear explanation of such complex things.


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## Bkwoodsbees (Feb 8, 2014)

Very interesting, thanks for posting.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

most of the paper was above my level of comprehension with regard to the science of genetics, but here are a few excerpts that i found understandable and interesting:

"Excitingly, our group has developed and implemented honey bee antenna protein markers in a selective breeding program. To our knowledge, this is the first time protein-based selective breeding has been performed in any agricultural species, plant or animal."

"Indeed, in a pioneering study investigating CCD, Johnson et al. (2009) used microarray technology to analyze the honey bee gut transcriptome of CCD and non-CCD colonies and found, surprisingly, that immune and pesticide response genes did not appear to play a role."

"While feeding on pollen may not counteract the response to Varroa or viruses, high quality pollen improves bees’ outcome in response to some pesticides (Schmehl et al. 2014)."

"By performing comparative genomics on feral honey bee museum samples, Mikheyev et al. (2015) were able to identify allele frequencies which changed significantly in response to Varroa introduction, indicating genes that are likely associated with Varroa resistance by natural selection."

"However, challenges to bee health are multifactorial (Figure 4), so one major difficulty lies in conducting investigations dealing with the combined effects of multiple stressors. As an example of compounding adverse stressors, exposure to pesticides can lead to immunosuppression, which in turn promotes pest prevalence and virulence. Along the same lines, nutritional stress can also compromise the ability of bees to survive infections, or enhance their sensitivity towards pesticides (reviewed by Goulson et al. (2015))."

all quotes from: https://www.researchgate.net/public..._disease_challenges_for_managed_and_wild_bees


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