Faculty of Sustainable Agriculture, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Sandakan, Sabah, 90509, Malaysia.
Department of Biosciences, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, 81310 UTM, Malaysia.
BMC Res Notes. 2023 Sep 12;16(1):211. doi: 10.1186/s13104-023-06495-9.
Pollen is a useful tool for identifying the provenance and complex ecosystems surrounding honey production in Malaysian forests. As native key pollinators in Malaysia, Apis dorsata and Heterotrigona itama forage on various plant/pollen species to collect honey. This study aims to generate a dataset that uncovers the presence of these plant/pollen species and their relative abundance in the honey of A. dorsata and H. itama. The information gathered from this study can be used to determine the geographical and botanical origin and authenticity of the honey produced by these two species.
Sequence data were obtained for both A. dorsata and H. itama. The raw sequence data for A. dorsata was 5 Mb, which was assembled into 5 contigs with a size of 6,098,728 bp, an N50 of 15,534, and a GC average of 57.42. Similarly, the raw sequence data for H. itama was 6.3 Mb, which was assembled into 11 contigs with a size of 7,642,048 bp, an N50 of 17,180, and a GC average of 55.38. In the honey sample of A. dorsata, we identified five different plant/pollen species, with only one of the five species exhibiting a relative abundance of less than 1%. For H. itama, we identified seven different plant/pollen species, with only three of the species exhibiting a relative abundance of less than 1%. All of the identified plant species were native to Peninsular Malaysia, especially the East Coast area of Terengganu.
Our data offers valuable insights into honey's geographical and botanical origin and authenticity. Metagenomic studies could help identify the plant species that honeybees forage and provide preliminary data for researchers studying the biological development of A. dorsata and H. itama. The identification of various flowers from the eDNA of honey that are known for their medicinal properties could aid in regional honey with accurate product origin labeling, which is crucial for guaranteeing product authenticity to consumers.
花粉是鉴定马来西亚森林中蜂蜜产地和复杂生态系统的有用工具。作为马来西亚的本地关键传粉媒介，亚洲大黄蜂和伊塔马拟蜜蜂（ Heterotrigona itama ）以各种植物/花粉为食来采集蜂蜜。本研究旨在生成一个数据集，揭示这些植物/花粉物种在亚洲大黄蜂和伊塔马拟蜜蜂蜂蜜中的存在及其相对丰度。从这项研究中收集的信息可用于确定这两个物种所产蜂蜜的地理和植物学起源以及真实性。
获得了亚洲大黄蜂和伊塔马拟蜜蜂的序列数据。亚洲大黄蜂的原始序列数据为 5 Mb，组装成 5 个大小为 6098728 bp 的 contigs，N50 为 15534，GC 平均值为 57.42。同样，伊塔马拟蜜蜂的原始序列数据为 6.3 Mb，组装成 11 个大小为 7642048 bp 的 contigs，N50 为 17180，GC 平均值为 55.38。在亚洲大黄蜂的蜂蜜样本中，我们鉴定出了五种不同的植物/花粉物种，其中只有一种植物/花粉的相对丰度低于 1%。对于伊塔马拟蜜蜂，我们鉴定出了七种不同的植物/花粉物种，其中只有三种植物/花粉的相对丰度低于 1%。所有鉴定出的植物物种都原产于马来西亚半岛，特别是登嘉楼东海岸地区。
我们的数据为蜂蜜的地理和植物学起源和真实性提供了有价值的见解。宏基因组学研究可以帮助识别蜜蜂采集的植物物种，并为研究亚洲大黄蜂和伊塔马拟蜜蜂生物发育的研究人员提供初步数据。从已知具有药用特性的蜂蜜的 eDNA 中鉴定出各种花卉，可以帮助实现具有准确产品起源标签的区域蜂蜜，这对于向消费者保证产品真实性至关重要。
