Where Did Western Honey Bees Come From? New Research Finds the Sweet Spot
upstart writes:
Where did western honey bees come from? New research finds the sweet spot:
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 -- from tropical rainforest, to arid environments, to temperate regions with cold winters. It is native to Africa, Europe and Asia, and was recently believed to have originated in Africa.
The research team sequenced 251 genomes from 18 subspecies from the honey bee's native range and used this data to reconstruct the origin and pattern of dispersal of honey bees. The team found that an Asian origin -- likely Western Asia -- was strongly supported by the genetic data.
"As one of the world's most important pollinators, it's essential to know the origin of the western honey bee to understand its evolution, genetics and how it adapted as it spread," says corresponding author Professor Amro Zayed of York University's Faculty of Science.
The study also highlights that the bee genome has several "hot spots" that allowed honey bees to adapt to new geographic areas. While the bee genome has more than 12,000 genes, only 145 of them had repeated signatures of adaptation associated with the formation of all major honey bee lineages found today.
Journal Reference:
Kathleen A. Dogantzis, Tanushree Tiwari, Ida M. Conflitti, et al. Thrice out of Asia and the adaptive radiation of the western honey bee, Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abj2151)
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.