The CC0 Public Domain is a public domain.
Scientists have debated the origin of the western honey bee for decades. The popular honey-produced bees most likely originated in Asia according to new research.
The western honey bee (Apis mellifera) was able to expand independently into Africa and Europe, creating seven separate geographically and genetically distinct evolutionary lineages.
The western honey bee is used for crop pollination and honey production throughout most of the world, and has a remarkable capacity for surviving in vastly different environments. It is native to Africa, Europe and Asia and was recently thought to have originated in Africa.
The research team used the data from the 251 genomes from the 18 honey bee species to reconstruct the dispersal of honey bees. The team found that the Asian origin was supported by the genetic data.
Professor Amro Zayed of York University's Faculty of Science says that it's essential to know the origin of the western honey bee to understand its evolution, genetics and how it adapted as it spread.
The study shows that the bee genome has a number of "hot spots" that allowed honey bees to adapt to new geographic areas. The bee genome has more than 12,000 genes, but only a small number of them have repeated signatures of adaptation associated with the formation of major honey bee lineages.
Kathleen Dogantzis of the Faculty of Science led the research which suggests that a core set of genes allowed the honey bee to adapt to a diverse set of environmental conditions across its native range.
The adaptation allowed for the development of 27 different types of honey bees.
Dogantzis says it's important to understand how locally adapted colonies and worker bees contribute to the fitness and diversity of managed colonies.
The discovery of two distinct bee lineages, one in Egypt and the other in Madagascar, was made because of the sequence of these bees.
The researchers hope that their study lays to the rest the question of where the western honey bee came from so that future research can explore how they adapted to different climates and geographic areas.
The adaptive radiation of the western honey bee is discussed in Kathleen Dogantzis et al. Science.org has an article titled "Sci Adv. abj2151."
Science Advances has journal information.
Where did western honey bees come from? The sweet spot was retrieved from the news atphys.org on December 3, 2021.
The document is copyrighted. Any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research cannot be reproduced without written permission. The content is not intended to be used for anything other than information purposes.
