Facchini Elena, De Iorio Maria Grazia, Turri Federica, Pizzi Flavia, Laurino Daniela, Porporato Marco, Rizzi Rita, Pagnacco Giulio
Department of Veterinary Medicine, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 10, 20133 Milan, Italy.
Institute of Agricultural Biology and Biotechnology, National Research Council, Via Einstein, 26900 Lodi, Italy.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Oct 26;11(11):3054. doi: 10.3390/ani11113054.
The quality of the honeybee queen has an important effect on a colony's development, productivity, and survival. Queen failure or loss is considered a leading cause for colonies' mortality worldwide. The queen's quality, resulting from her genetic background, developmental conditions, mating success, and environment, can be assessed by some morphological measures. The study aims to investigate variability for traits that could assess the quality of the queen. Related animals were enrolled in this study. Variance components were estimated fitting a mixed animal model to collected data. Heritabilities of body and tagmata weights ranged from 0.46 to 0.54, whereas lower estimates were found for the tagmata width and wing length. Heritabilities estimated for the spermatheca diameter and volume, number of ovarioles, and number of sperms were 0.17, 0.88, 0.70, and 0.57, respectively. Many phenotypic correlations related to size were high and positive, while weak correlations were found between morphology and reproductive traits. Introducing a queen's traits in a selection program could improve colonies' survivability. Further research should focus on better defining the correlations between the individual qualities of a queen and her colony's performance.
蜜蜂蜂王的品质对蜂群的发展、生产力和生存有着重要影响。蜂王的失败或损失被认为是全球蜂群死亡的主要原因。蜂王的品质受其遗传背景、发育条件、交配成功率和环境影响，可通过一些形态学指标进行评估。本研究旨在调查可用于评估蜂王品质的性状的变异性。相关动物被纳入本研究。通过对收集的数据拟合混合动物模型来估计方差成分。身体和体节重量的遗传力范围为0.46至0.54，而体节宽度和翅长的估计值较低。精囊直径和体积、卵巢小管数量以及精子数量的遗传力分别为0.17、0.88、0.70和0.57。许多与大小相关的表型相关性较高且为正，而形态与繁殖性状之间的相关性较弱。在选育计划中引入蜂王的性状可以提高蜂群的生存能力。进一步的研究应侧重于更好地界定蜂王个体品质与其蜂群性能之间的相关性。
