In recent years, many pollinators have experienced large population declines, which threaten food security and the stability of natural ecosystems. Bumble bees are particularly important because their ability to “buzz” pollinate and tolerate cooler conditions make them critical pollinators for certain plants and regions. Here, we apply a conservation genomics approach to study the vulnerable Bombus terricola . We sequenced RNA...

The Kinship Theory of Genomic Imprinting (KTGI) posits that, in species where females mate with multiple males, there is selection for a male to enhance the reproductive success of his offspring at the expense of other males and his mating partner. Reciprocal crosses between honey bee subspecies show parent‐of‐origin effects for reproductive traits, suggesting that males modify the expression of genes related to female functio...

De la Rúa et al . (2013) express some concerns about the conclusions of our recent study showing that management increases genetic diversity of honey bees ( A pis mellifera ) by promoting admixture (Harpur et al . 2012). We provide a brief review of the literature on the population genetics of A . mellifera and show that we utilized appropriate sampling methods to estimate genetic diversity in the focal populations. Our findin...

The process of domestication often brings about profound changes in levels of genetic variation in animals and plants. The honey bee, Apis mellifera, has been managed by humans for centuries for both honey and wax production and crop pollination. Human management and selective breeding are believed to have caused reductions in genetic diversity in honey bee populations, thereby contributing to the global declines threatening t...

The vitellogenin egg yolk precursor protein represents a well‐studied case of social pleiotropy in the model organism Apis mellifera . Vitellogenin is associated with fecundity in queens and plays a major role in controlling division of labour in workers, thereby affecting both individual and colony‐level fitness. We studied the molecular evolution of vitellogenin and seven other genes sequenced in a large population panel of...

Oligolectic bees collect pollen from one or a few closely related species of plants, whereas polylectic bees visit a variety of flowers for pollen. Because of their more restricted range of host plants, it maybe expected that specialists exist in smaller, more isolated populations, with lower effective population sizes than generalists. Consequently, we hypothesized that oligolectic bees have reduced levels of genetic variatio...