Honey bees exploit their predecessors
 US entomologists (those who study insects) have discovered that honey
bees invade new territories in repeated assaults and then benefit from
the genetic endowment (features) of their predecessors.
University of Illinois Professor Charles Whitfield and postdoctoral
researcher Amro Zayed analysed the genes of honey bees in Africa,
Europe, Asia and the Americas. The researchers were looking for tiny
variations in the sequences (order) of nucleotides that make up all
genes.
By comparing the genes in bees from different geographic territories,
the researchers determined invading bees weren't randomly acquiring
genetic material from their predecessors by interbreeding but certain
genes from the previously introduced bees were giving the newcomers an
advantage.
When the African honey bees mate with the western European honey bees
that had been in South America for centuries, one might expect that the
hybrid offspring would randomly pick up both the functional and
non-functional parts of the genome, Zayed said.
"Those African bees are doing better because there were western
European honey bees there for them to mix with," he said. "Now we can
say we have a signature for evolution in the genome (gene group)."
The study appears in the early online edition of the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences.
- UPI |
