Rüppell O, Pankiw T, Page R E
Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, 107 Eberhart Building, P.O. Box 26170, Greensboro, NC 27402, USA.
J Hered. 2004 Nov-Dec;95(6):481-91. doi: 10.1093/jhered/esh072.
The regulation of division of labor in social insects, particularly in the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.), has received considerable attention from a number of biological subdisciplines, including quantitative and behavioral genetics, because of the high complexity of the behavioral traits involved. The foraging choices of honey bee workers can be accurately quantified, and previous studies have made the foraging behavior of honey bees one of the best studied naturally occurring behavioral phenotypes. Three quantitative trait loci (QTL) have been identified that influence a set of foraging variables, including the concentration of nectar collected and the amount of pollen and nectar brought back to the hive. This study extends previous genetic investigations and represents the most comprehensive investigation of the genetic architecture of these foraging variables. We examined the effects of markers for the three established QTL and for one further candidate gene (Amfor), in two reciprocal backcross populations. These populations were also used to carry out two new QTL mapping studies, with over 400 Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) markers in each. We detected a variety of effects of the genetic markers for the established QTL and the candidate gene, which were mostly epistatic in nature. A few new QTL could be detected with a variety of mapping techniques. Our results add complexity to the genetic architecture of the foraging behavior of the honey bee. Specifically, we support the hypotheses that pln1, pln2, pln3, and Amfor are involved in the regulation of foraging behavior in the honey bee and add some new factors that deserve further study in the future.
社会昆虫，特别是蜜蜂（西方蜜蜂）的分工调控，由于所涉及行为特征的高度复杂性，受到了包括数量遗传学和行为遗传学在内的多个生物学子学科的广泛关注。蜜蜂工蜂的觅食选择可以被精确量化，并且先前的研究已使蜜蜂的觅食行为成为研究最为深入的自然行为表型之一。已鉴定出三个影响一组觅食变量的数量性状基因座（QTL），这些变量包括采集花蜜的浓度以及带回蜂巢的花粉和花蜜量。本研究扩展了先前的遗传学研究，是对这些觅食变量遗传结构最全面的调查。我们在两个正反交回交群体中研究了三个已确定的QTL以及另一个候选基因（Amfor）的标记效应。这些群体还被用于开展两项新的QTL定位研究，每项研究使用了400多个扩增片段长度多态性（AFLP）标记。我们检测到已确定的QTL和候选基因的遗传标记具有多种效应，这些效应大多本质上是上位性的。通过各种定位技术可以检测到一些新的QTL。我们的研究结果增加了蜜蜂觅食行为遗传结构的复杂性。具体而言，我们支持pln1、pln2、pln3和Amfor参与蜜蜂觅食行为调控的假说，并添加了一些未来值得进一步研究的新因素。
