Plate Manuel, Bernstein Richard, Hoppe Andreas, Bienefeld Kaspar
Institute for Bee Research, Friedrich-Engels Str. 32, 16540 Hohen Neuendorf, Germany.
Albrecht Daniel Thaer-Institute for Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences, Humboldt University of Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany.
Insects. 2020 Jun 30;11(7):404. doi: 10.3390/insects11070404.
Modern breeding structures are emerging for European honeybee populations. However, while genetic evaluations of honeybees are becoming increasingly well understood, little is known about how selection decisions shape the populations' genetic structures. We performed simulations evaluating 100 different selection schemes, defined by selection rates for dams and sires, in populations of 200, 500, or 1000 colonies per year and considering four different quantitative traits, reflecting different genetic parameters and numbers of influential loci. Focusing on sustainability, we evaluated genetic progress over 100 years and related it to inbreeding developments. While all populations allowed for sustainable breeding with generational inbreeding rates below 1% per generation, optimal selection rates differed and sustainable selection was harder to achieve in smaller populations and for stronger negative correlations of maternal and direct effects in the selection trait. In small populations, a third or a fourth of all candidate queens should be selected as dams, whereas this number declined to a sixth for larger population sizes. Furthermore, our simulations indicated that, particularly in small populations, as many sires as possible should be provided. We conclude that carefully applied breeding provides good prospects for currently endangered honeybee subspecies, since sustainable genetic progress improves their attractiveness to beekeepers.
欧洲蜜蜂种群正在形成现代育种结构。然而，虽然对蜜蜂的遗传评估越来越为人所理解，但对于选择决策如何塑造种群的遗传结构却知之甚少。我们进行了模拟，评估了100种不同的选择方案，这些方案由母本和父本的选择率定义，每年有200、500或1000个蜂群的种群，并考虑了四个不同的数量性状，反映了不同的遗传参数和有影响的基因座数量。着眼于可持续性，我们评估了100年内的遗传进展，并将其与近亲繁殖的发展情况联系起来。虽然所有种群都允许进行可持续育种，世代近亲繁殖率低于1%，但最佳选择率各不相同，在较小的种群中以及选择性状中母本和直接效应的负相关性较强时，更难实现可持续选择。在小种群中，所有候选蜂王的三分之一或四分之一应被选作母本，而对于较大的种群规模，这个比例降至六分之一。此外，我们的模拟表明，特别是在小种群中，应提供尽可能多的父本。我们得出结论，谨慎应用育种为目前濒危的蜜蜂亚种提供了良好的前景，因为可持续的遗传进展提高了它们对养蜂人的吸引力。
