Review
Version 1
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Why Honey Bees Are Dying: A Forgotten Cause
Version 1
: Received: 23 October 2023 / Approved: 24 October 2023 / Online: 25 October 2023 (05:18:32 CEST)
How to cite: Alphen, J. J. M. V. Why Honey Bees Are Dying: A Forgotten Cause. Preprints 2023, 2023101544. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.1544.v1 Alphen, J. J. M. V. Why Honey Bees Are Dying: A Forgotten Cause. Preprints 2023, 2023101544. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.1544.v1
Abstract
This article explains how resistance alleles have become rare or have disappeared from honey bee populations in Europe (and probably also in North America). Honeybees have the highest recombination frequency of all animals, indicating that pathogenic bacteria, viruses, fungi and microsporidia are an important source of selection. To respond to new virulent strains of pathogens, honeybees need to have access to rare alleles that could foster immunity against a new pathogen. By mating in a large panmictic population, new rare alleles can be recruited, which can then be combined into new genotypes through recombination with useful alleles of other genes. Bee breeders, by selecting small samples from a large population tend to select common alleles and lose the rare ones. Rare alleles can become important when a new virulent pathogen arrives. The loss of rare alleles makes bees vulnerable to disease and parasites and explains, together with the problems caused by modern agriculture, why managed bees have high mortality rates.
Keywords
natural selection, genetic variation, population structure, Varroa resistance, behaviour
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Insect Science
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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