title: MtDNA COI-COII marker and drone congregation area: an efficient method to establish and monitor honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) conservation centres.
abstract: Honeybee subspecies have been affected by human activities in Europe over the past few decades. One such example is the importation of nonlocal subspecies of bees which has had an adverse impact on the geographical repartition and subsequently on the genetic diversity of the black honeybee Apis mellifera mellifera. To restore the original diversity of this local honeybee subspecies, different conservation centres were set up in Europe. In this study, we established a black honeybee conservation centre Conservatoire de l'Abeille Noire d'Ile de France (CANIF) in the region of Ile-de-France, France. CANIF's honeybee colonies were intensively studied over a 3-year period. This study included a drone congregation area (DCA) located in the conservation centre. MtDNA COI-COII marker was used to evaluate the genetic diversity of CANIF's honeybee populations and the drones found and collected from the DCA. The same marker (mtDNA) was used to estimate the interactions and the haplotype frequency between CANIF's honeybee populations and 10 surrounding honeybee apiaries located outside of the CANIF. Our results indicate that the colonies of the conservation centre and the drones of the DCA show similar stable profiles compared to the surrounding populations with lower level of introgression. The mtDNA marker used on both DCA and colonies of the conservation centre seems to be an efficient approach to monitor and maintain the genetic diversity of the protected honeybee populations.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Evolution Génomes et Spéciation, CNRS, UPR 9034, 91198, Gif-sur-Yvette, France; Université Paris-Sud XI, 91405, Orsay, France.
authors.forename: Bénédicte
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bertrand
authors.forename: Mohamed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alburaki
authors.forename: Hélène
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Legout
authors.forename: Sibyle
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Moulin
authors.forename: Florence
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mougel
authors.forename: Lionel
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Garnery
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV / Q000235:genetics*; D005602:France; D005787:Gene Frequency; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006239:Haplotypes
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV
keywords: Apis mellifera mellifera; conservation centre; drone congregation area; honeybee; mtDNA COI-COII marker