Browsing by Author "Hatjina, Fani"
Now showing 1 - 10 of 16
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- An unprecedented large-scale survey of honey bee mitochondrial diversity in Europe: c-lineage dominance and the need for conservation effortsPublication . Li, Fernanda; Costa, Maíra; Lopes, Ana Rita; Gonçalves, Telma; Henriques, Dora; Quaresma, Andreia; Yadró Garcia, Carlos A.; Albo, Alexandre; Blažytė-Čereškienė, Laima; Brodschneider, Robert; Brusbardis, Valters; Carreck, Norman L.; Charistos, Leonidas; Chlebo, Robert; Coffey, Mary F.; Dahle, Bjørn; Danneels, Ellen; Dobrescu, Constantin; Dupleix-Marchal, Anna; Filipi, Janja; Gajda, Anna; Gratzer, Kristina; Groeneveld, Linn Fenna; Hatjina, Fani; Johannesen, Jes; Kolasa, Michal; Körmendy-Rácz, János; Kovačić, Marin; Kristiansen, Preben; Martikkala, Maritta; McCormack, Grace P.; Martín-Hernández, Raquel; Pavlov, Borce; Pietropaoli, Marco; Poirot, Benjamin; Radev, Zheko; Raudmets, Aivar; René-Douarre, Vincent; Roessink, Ivo; Škerl, Maja Ivana Smodiš; Soland-Reckeweg, Gabriele; Titera, Dalibor; Steen, Jozef van der; Varnava, Andri; Vejsnæs, Flemming; Webster, Matthew T.; Fedoriak, Mariia M.; Zarochentseva, Oksana; Graaf, Dirk C.; Pinto, M. AliceEurope is home to ten Apis mellifera subspecies, which belong to three mitochondrial lineages: the Western European (M), Eastern European (C), and African (A). However, the long-standing human-mediated movement of queens, primarily of C-lineage ancestry, has threatened the genetic integrity of many of these native subspecies through introgression and replacement. This has led to the establishment of conservation programs to recover the native lines in some European countries. The maternally-inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), particularly the highly polymorphic intergenic region tRNAleu-cox2, has been the marker of choice for assessing honey bee variation and introgression at large geographical scales. Herein, we will show the results of the tRNAleu-cox2 variation obtained from over 1200 colonies sampled across the range of the ten subspecies and covering 33 European countries. These revealed that apart from a few countries (Portugal, Spain, and Ireland) and isolated protected populations, European populations are predominantly dominated by C-lineage haplotypes, and many native subspecies exhibit a signature of C-derived introgression. In conclusion, this unprecedented survey of honey bee diversity across Europe underscores the concerning dominance of C-lineage genetic variation, highlighting the urgent need for strategic conservation efforts to preserve the native genetic diversity of Apis mellifera.
- Authoritative subspecies diagnosis tool for European honey bees based on ancestry informative SNPsPublication . Momeni, Jamal; Parejo, Melanie; Nielsen, Rasmus O.; Langa, Jorge; Montes, Iratxe; Papoutsis, Laetitia; Farajzadeh, Leila; Bendixen, Christian; Căuia, Eliza; Charrière, Jean Daniel; Coffey, Mary F.; Costa, Cecilia; Dall'Olio, Raffaele; De la Rúa, Pilar; Dražić, Marica Maja; Filipi, Janja; Galea, Thomas; Golubovski, Miroljub; Gregorc, Aleš; Grigoryan, Karina; Hatjina, Fani; Ilyasov, Rustem; Ivanova, Evgeniya Neshova; Janashia, Irakli; Kandemir, Irfan; Karatasou, Aikaterini; Kekecoglu, Meral; Kezic, Nikola; Matray, Enikö Sz; Mifsud, David; Moosbeckhofer, Rudolf; Nikolenko, Alexei G.; Papachristoforou, Alexandros; Petrov, Plamen; Pinto, M. Alice; Poskryakov, Aleksandr V.; Sharipov, Aglyam Y.; Siceanu, Adrian; Soysal, M. Ihsan; Uzunov, Aleksandar; Zammit Mangion, Marion; Vingborg, Rikke; Bouga, Maria; Kryger, Per; Meixner, Marina D.; Estonba, AndoneWith numerous endemic subspecies representing four of its five evolutionary lineages, Europe holds a large fraction of Apis mellifera genetic diversity. This diversity and the natural distribution range have been altered by anthropogenic factors. The conservation of this natural heritage relies on the availability of accurate tools for subspecies diagnosis. Based on pool-sequence data from 2145 worker bees representing 22 populations sampled across Europe, we employed two highly discriminative approaches (PCA and FST) to select the most informative SNPs for ancestry inference. Results: Using a supervised machine learning (ML) approach and a set of 3896 genotyped individuals, we could show that the 4094 selected single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) provide an accurate prediction of ancestry inference in European honey bees. The best ML model was Linear Support Vector Classifier (Linear SVC) which correctly assigned most individuals to one of the 14 subspecies or different genetic origins with a mean accuracy of 96.2% ± 0.8 SD. A total of 3.8% of test individuals were misclassified, most probably due to limited differentiation between the subspecies caused by close geographical proximity, or human interference of genetic integrity of reference subspecies, or a combination thereof. Conclusions: The diagnostic tool presented here will contribute to a sustainable conservation and support breeding activities in order to preserve the genetic heritage of European honey bees.
- Bio-Monitoring of environmental pollution using the citizen science approachPublication . Steen, Jozef van der; Amaral, Joana S.; Baveco, Hans; Blanco Muñoz, Patricia; Brodschneider, Robert; Brusbardis, Valters; Buddendorf, Bas; Carreck, Norman L.; Danneels, Ellen; Charistos, Leonidas; Graaf, Dirk C.; Díaz Galiano, Francisco José; Fernandez-Alba, Amadeo; Ferrer-Amate, Carmen; Formato, Giovanni; Gómez Ramos, María José; Gratzer, Kristina; Gray, Alison; Hatjina, Fani; Henriques, Dora; Kasiotis, Konstantinos; Kilpinen, Ole; Lopes, Ana; Martínez Bueno, María Jesús; Murcia-Morales, María; Pietropaoli, Marco; Pinto, M. Alice; Quaresma, Andreia; Rufino, José; Roessink, Ivo; Vejsnæs, Flemming; Zafeiraki, EffrosyniHoneybee colonies are excellent bio-samplers of biological material such as nectar, pollen, and plant pathogens, as well as non-biological material such as pesticides or airborne contamination. The INSIGNIA-EU project aims to design and test an innovative, non-invasive, scientifically proven citizen science environmental monitoring protocol for the detection of pesticides, microplastics, heavy metals, and air pollutants by honey bee colonies http://insignia-eu.eu. In the pilot INSIGNIA project (2018-2021), a protocol was developed and tested for citizen-science-based monitoring of pesticides using honeybees. As part of the project, biweekly pollen was obtained from sentinel apiaries over a range of European countries and landscapes and analysed for botanical origin, using state-of-theart molecular techniques such as metabarcoding. An innovative non-biological matrix, the “APIStrip”, was also proved to be very efficient for detecting the residues of 273 agricultural pesticides and veterinary products, both authorized and unauthorized. The data collected are used to develop and test a spatial modelling system aimed at predicting the spatiallyexplicit environmental fate of pesticides and honeybee landscape-scale pollen foraging, with a common underlying geo-database containing European land-use and land-cover data (CORINE), the LUCAS database (landcover) supplemented with national data sets on agricultural and (semi-) natural habitats. After a call by the European Commission, a new 2 years project was granted aiming to present a comprehensive pan-European environmental pollution monitoring study with honey bees. Although pesticides used in agriculture, are a known hazard due to their biological activity, other pollutants, have even been recognized as such, for which we have not been aware of their impact for many years. An example is air pollution which increased while our societies industrialized and is currently regarded as the single largest environmental health risk in Europe (https://www.eea.europa.eu/). Unfortunately, other pollutants such as heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls, airborne particulate matter, and microplastics have also reached our environment. The outcome of this project will provide the first standardized EU-wide monitoring of all types of environmental pollutants with honey bee colonies. The project is funded by the EU, under the N° 09.200200/2021/864096/SER/ ENV.D.2 contract.
- Evaluation of suppressed mite reproduction (Smr) reveals potential for varroa resistance in european honey bees (apis mellifera l.)Publication . Mondet, Fanny; Parejo, Melanie; Meixner, Marina D.; Costa, Cecilia; Kryger, Per; Andonov, Sreten; Servin, Bertrand; Basso, Benjamin; Bieńkowska, Małgorzata; Bigio, Gianluigi; Căuia, Eliza; Cebotari, Valentina; Dahle, Bjørn; Dražić, Marica Maja; Hatjina, Fani; Kovačić, Marin; Kretavicius, Justinas; Lima, Ana S.; Panasiuk, Beata; Pinto, M. Alice; Uzunov, Aleksandar; Wilde, Jerzy; Büchler, RalphIn the fight against the Varroa destructor mite, selective breeding of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) populations that are resistant to the parasitic mite stands as a sustainable solution. Selection initiatives indicate that using the suppressed mite reproduction (SMR) trait as a selection criterion is a suitable tool to breed such resistant bee populations. We conducted a large European experiment to evaluate the SMR trait in different populations of honey bees spread over 13 different countries, and representing different honey bee genotypes with their local mite parasites. The first goal was to standardize and validate the SMR evaluation method, and then to compare the SMR trait between the different populations. Simulation results indicate that it is necessary to examine at least 35 single-infested cells to reliably estimate the SMR score of any given colony. Several colonies from our dataset display high SMR scores indicating that this trait is present within the European honey bee populations. The trait is highly variable between colonies and some countries, but no major differences could be identified between countries for a given genotype, or between genotypes in different countries. This study shows the potential to increase selective breeding efforts of V. destructor resistant populations.
- Exploiting the mitogenomes of apis mellifera subspecies to develop an authentication tool to verify the entomological origin of mediterranean honeysPublication . Honrado, Mónica; Henriques, Dora; Santos, Joana; Yadró Garcia, Carlos A.; Martín-Hernández, Raquel; Nanetti, Antonio; González, Amelia Virginia; Al Shagour, Banan; Hosri, Chadi; Farrugia, Dylan; Giovanni, Cilia; Zammit Mangion, Marion; Muz, Mustafa Necati; Haddad, Nizar; Galea, Thomas; Haider, Yamina; Obeidat, Wisam; Aglagane, Abdessamad; Arab, Alireza; Varnava, Andri; Eissa, Asmaa Anwar; Muz, Dilek; Hatjina, Fani; Lamghari, Fouad; Arruda, James; Caristos Caristos, Leonidas; Pinto, M. Alice; Amaral, Joana S.Honey is highly susceptible to adulteration. Currently, the assessment of its geographical origin remains one of the most difficult tasks, which is typically performed by melyssopalynology. Recently, the attention has shifted towards indirect approaches such as the entomological origin based on geographical distribution patterns of honey bee subspecies. Although queens’ trade has impacted the natural subspecies distribution, honeys produced with autochthonous bees or bearing a Protected Designation of Origin specifying the producing honey bee subspecies, offer a unique avenue for authentication. In the MEDIBEES project, we aim to develop a DNA-metabarcoding approach to authenticate honey's entomological origin focusing on mitochondrial lineages A, M, C, and O. To achieve this goal, the DNA from 1251 honey bees representing 16 subspecies (A.m. sahariensis, A.m. intermissa, A.m. siciliana, A.m. ruttneri, A.m. iberiensis, A.m. ligustica, A.m. macedonica, A.m. adami, A.m. cecropia, A.m. cypria, A.m. caucasia, A.m. meda, A.m. anatoliaca, A.m. syriaca, A.m. jemenitica, A.m. lamarcki) was extracted and the whole genome sequenced. From those, 740 mitogenomes were assembled using the MitoZ software. The quality of the assembled mitogenome was assessed by aligning all the sequences using MEGA and 348 samples were deleted. Finally, a phylogenetic analysis was conducted to eliminate non-local subspecies, resulting in a total of 326 mitogenomes. This dataset was used for calculating the fixation index (FST) pairwise values, and a sliding window of 400bp was used to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms that effectively differentiate (FST>0.98) the four lineages, enabling the identification of promising regions for primer design. In this study, three regions were identified that discriminate the four maternal lineages while showing an appropriate length for metabarcoding, namely in the COI, ND1 gene, and CYTB genes.
- Honey bee (Apis mellifera) wing images: a tool for identification and conservationPublication . Oleksa, Andrzej; Cauia, Eliza; Siceanu, Adrian; Puskadija, Zlatko; Kovačić, Marin; Pinto, M. Alice; Rodrigues, Pedro J.; Hatjina, Fani; Charistos, Leonidas; Bouga, Maria; Presern, Janez; Kandemir, Irfan; Rasic, Sladan; Kusza, Szilvia; Tofilski, AdamThe honey bee (Apis mellifera) is an ecologically and economically important species that provides pollination services to natural and agricultural systems. The biodiversity of the honey bee in parts of its native range is endangered by migratory beekeeping and commercial breeding. In consequence, some honey bee populations that are well adapted to the local environment are threatened with extinction. A crucial step for the protection of honey bee biodiversity is reliable differentiation between native and nonnative bees. One of the methods that can be used for this is the geometric morphometrics of wings. This method is fast, is low cost, and does not require expensive equipment. Therefore, it can be easily used by both scientists and beekeepers. However, wing geometric morphometrics is challenging due to the lack of reference data that can be reliably used for comparisons between different geographic regions. Here, we provide an unprecedented collection of 26,481 honey bee wing images representing 1,725 samples from 13 European countries. The wing images are accompanied by the coordinates of 19 landmarks and the geographic coordinates of the sampling locations. We present an R script that describes the workflow for analyzing the data and identifying an unknown sample. We compared the data with available reference samples for lineage and found general agreement with them. The extensive collection of wing images available on the Zenodo website can be used to identify the geographic origin of unknown samples and therefore assist in the monitoring and conservation of honey bee biodiversity in Europe.
- Identification of botanical origin of bee-collected mixed pollen samples: a comparison between palynological and DNA metabarcoding methodsPublication . Quaresma, Andreia; Steen, Jozef van der; Amaral, Joana S.; Biron, David G.; Brodschneider, Robert; Brusbardis, Valters; Carreck, Norman L.; Formato, Giovanni; Gratzer, Kristina; Hatjina, Fani; Kilpinem, Ole; Pietropaoli, Marco; Rufino, José; Vejsnaes, Flemming; Pinto, M. AliceIdentification of botanical origin of mixed pollen samples has several applications, including unraveling plant-pollinator interactions, determining botanical origin of honey, monitoring allergy-related airborne pollen sources, or even monitoring pesticide use in crops. These applications have typically been addressed using light microscopy, a costly approach that often provides low taxonomic resolution. However, with high-throughput sequencing (HTS) becoming increasingly affordable, DNA metabarcoding is emerging as a promising alternative to classical palynology. In addition to be time- and cost-effective for large sample sizes, metabarcoding has the potential to allow identification of pollen mixtures at the species level. However, before it can be widely employed in pollen analysis, the reliability of this molecular tool must be appraised. Herein, we compared the two approaches on 61 bee-collected pollen samples from eight European countries. The samples were homogenized and split into two sub-samples. One set of 61 sub-samples was analyzed by palynology experts from the “Institut für Bienenkunde”, Germany, and the other one was subjected to HTS, using ITS2 as the barcode, in the labs of CIMO and CIBIO. Comparisons of the relative abundances at the family level show no significant differences (P ≥ 0.1057, Wilcoxon signed-rank test) and high correlation values (0.2736 ≤ r ≤ 1.000, Pearson’s correlation) between the two approaches. The highest correlation values were observed for Italian samples (0.7245 ≤ r ≤ 0.9842; global r = 0.8958) and the lowest for Greek samples (0.0266 ≤ r ≤ 0.9703; global r = 0.5149). These results suggest that ITS2 metabarcoding offers a reliable alternative to classical palynology and this approach is now being employed in the European project INSIGNIA (https://www.insignia-bee.eu/), which is developing a standard protocol for using the honey bee as a tool for environmental monitoring.
- INSIGNIA: um projeto de monitorização ambiental de pesticidas através da utilização da abelha melliferaPublication . Pinto, M. Alice; Amaral, Joana S.; Baveco, Hans; Biron, David G.; Brodschneider, Robert; Brusbardis, Valters; Carreck, Norman L.; Charistos, Leonidas; Coffey, Mary F.; Fernandez-Alba, Amadeo; Formato, Giovanni; Graaf, Dirk C.; Gratzer, Kristina; Gray, Alison; Hatjina, Fani; Kasiotis, Konstantinos; Kilpinen, Ole; Pietropaoli, Marco; Roessink, Ivo; Rufino, José; Vejsnæs, Flemming; Steen, Jozef van derINSIGNIA ("cItizeN Science InvestiGatioN for pestIcIcides in Apicultutarl products"; https://www.insignia-bee,eu/) é um projecto financiado pela agência "Directorate General for Health and Food Safety" da Comissão Europeia, e que teve início em Outubro de 2018. O consórcio INSIGNIA é coordenado por Jozef van der Steen e integra 16 instituições parceiras de 12 países Europeus, entre as quais está o Centro de Investigação e Montanha (CIMO) do Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (IPB).
- Introducing the INSIGNIA project: environmental monitoring of pesticide use through honey beesPublication . Steen, Jozef van der; Brodschneider, Robert; Gratzer, Kristina; Bieszczad, Sarah; Hatjina, Fani; Charistos, Leonidas; Carreck, Norman L.; Gray, Alison; Pinto, M.Alice; Amaral, Joana S.; Rufino, José; Quaresma, Andreia; Roessink, Ivo; Baveco, Hans; Formato, Giovanni; Pietropaoli, Marco; Kasiotis, Konstantinos; Anagnostopoulos, Christ; Zafeiraki, Effrosyni; Fernandez-Alba, Amadeo; Eulderink, Caroline; Vejsnæs, Flemming; Kilpinen, Ole; Coffey, Mary F.; Biron, David G.; Brusbardis, Valters; Graaf, Dirk C.INSIGNIA aims to design and test an innovative, non-invasive, scientifically proven citizen science environmental monitoring protocol for the detection of pesticides by honey bees. It is a 30-month pilot project initiated and financed by the EC (PP-1-1-2018; EC SANTE). The study is being carried out by a consortium of specialists in honey bees, apiculture, statistics, analytics, modelling, extension, social science and citizen science from twelve countries. Honey bee colonies are excellent bio-samplers of biological material such as nectar, pollen and plant pathogens, as well as non-biological material such as pesticides or airborne contamination. Honey bee colonies forage over a circle of 1 km radius, increasing to several km if required, depending on the availability and attractiveness of food. All material collected is accumulated in the hive.
- Introducing the INSIGNIA project: Environmental monitoring of pesticides use through honey beesPublication . Carreck, Norman L.; Amaral, Joana S.; Anagnostopoulos, Christ; Baveco, Hans; Bieszczad, Sarah; Biron, David G.; Brodschneider, Robert; Brusbardis, Valters; Charistos, Leonidas; Coffey, Mary F.; Eulderink, Caroline; Fernández-Alba, A.R.; Formato, Giovanni; Graaf, Dirk C.; Gratzer, Kristina; Gray, Alison; Hatjina, Fani; Kasiotis, Konstantinos; Kilpinen, Ole; Murcia-Morales, Maria; Pietropaoli, Marco; Pinto, M. Alice; Quaresma, Andreia; Roessink, Ivo; Rufino, José; Vejsnæs, Flemming; Zafeiraki, Effrosyni; Van der Steen, J.INSIGNIA aims to design and test an innovative, non-invasive, scientifically proven citizen science environmental monitoring protocol for the detection of pesticides via honey bees. It is a pilot project initiated and financed by the European Commission (PP-1-1-2018; EC SANTE). The study is being carried out by a consortium of specialists in honey bees, apiculture, chemistry, molecular biology, statistics, analytics, modelling, extension, social science and citizen science from twelve countries. Honey bee colonies are excellent bio-samplers of biological material such as nectar, pollen and plant pathogens, as well as non-biological material such as pesticides or airborne contamination. Honey bee colonies forage over a circle of about 1 km radius, increasing to several km if required depending on the availability and attractiveness of food. All material collected is concentrated in the hive, and the honey bee colony can provide four main matrices for environmental monitoring: bees, honey, pollen and wax. For pesticides, pollen and wax are the focal matrices. Pollen collected in pollen traps will be sampled every two weeks to record foraging conditions. During the season, most of pollen is consumed within days, so beebread can provide recent, random sampling results. On the other hand wax acts as a passive sampler, building up an archive of pesticides that have entered the hive. Alternative in-hive passive samplers will be tested to replicate wax as a “pesticide-sponge”. Samples will be analysed for the presence of pesticides and the botanical origin of the pollen using an ITS2 DNA metabarcoding approach. Data on pollen and pesticides will be then be combined to obtain information on foraging conditions and pesticide use, together with evaluation of the CORINE database for land use and pesticide legislation to model the exposure risks to honey bees and wild bees. All monitoring steps from sampling through to analysis will be studied and tested in four countries in year 1, and the best practices will then be ring-tested in nine countries in year 2. Information about the course of the project and its results and publications will be available in the INSIGNIA website www.insignia-bee.eu.