A carregar...
41 resultados
Resultados da pesquisa
A mostrar 1 - 10 de 41
- DNA-based methods as a powerful tool for the entomological authentication of honeyPublication . Honrado, Mónica; Quaresma, Andreia; Lopes, Ana; Pinto, M. Alice; Henriques, Dora; Amaral, Joana S.Honey is a food widely consumed worldwide and much appreciated for its nutritional, organoleptic and health properties. However, it is also considered one of the food products most prone to be adulterated in the EU. Up until now, honey authenticity addressed mainly the issue of sugars addition and botanical origin. Still, increased attention has recently been paid to honey entomological origin as it also relates to its geographical origin since honeybees carrying mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of distinct ancestries can be found across Europe. While in Portugal mtDNA of the autochthonous subspecies Apis mellifera iberiensis belongs to the African (A) lineage, in the northeastern part of Iberia African mitotypes are replaced by mitotypes of western European (M-lineage) ancestry. The native distribution of the M-lineage A. m. mellifera expands from the Pyrenees to Scandinavia and from the British Isles to the Ural Mountains while the C-lineage A. m. ligustica and A. m. carnica subspecies are naturally found in the Apennine and Balkan peninsulas, respectively [1]. Also, certain honeys holding the protected designation of origin (PDO) label should be produced by autochthonous A. mellifera subspecies, as mentioned in their EU geographical indications register.
- COI Metabarcoding as a Novel Approach for Assessing the Honey Bee Source of European HoneyPublication . Honrado, Mónica; Quaresma, Andreia; Henriques, Dora; Pinto, M. Alice; Amaral, Joana S.Honey is a widely consumed food product frequently subjected to adulteration, with the mislabeling of its botanical or geographical origin being one of the most common practices. Determining the entomological origin of honey is particularly challenging but of high relevance for ensuring its authenticity, especially for products with protected designation of origin (PDO) labels. This study presents a novel DNA metabarcoding approach targeting a highly informative 406 bp fragment of the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene to differentiate among the three major mitochondrial lineages (A, M, and C) of honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) native to Europe. The target region was selected based on the calculated fixation index (FST), which is frequently used in Population Genetics as a measure of differentiation between populations. The approach was validated with 11 honey samples of known entomological origin and applied to 44 commercial honeys from 13 countries. The approach demonstrated high sensitivity, accurately identifying the entomological origin of honey, including samples produced by honey bees of varying ancestries, which could not be resolved by previous methods based on real-time PCR coupled with high-resolution melting (PCR-HRM) analysis. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of COI metabarcoding in verifying honey authenticity and highlight the predominance of C-lineage honey bees in the production of commercial honeys from northwestern Europe. This finding suggests a limited presence of the native M-lineage ancestry, underscoring the need for conservation efforts.
- Autent+ Desenvolvimento de abordagem inovadoras com vista à valorização e exploração do potencial de mercado do mel PortuguêsPublication . Amaral, Joana S.; Quaresma, Andreia; Rodrigues, Pedro João; Rufino, José; Henriques, Dora; Calaim, Luís; Gaspar, Albino; Pinto, M. AliceA FENAPICOLA candidatou-se, como proponente, a uma medida de investigação aplicada, tendo convidado o Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (IPB) como entidade parceira, envolvendo este último uma equipa multidisciplinar de 6 investigadores provenientes dos centros de investigação CIMO (Centro de Investigação de Montanha) e CEDRI (Centro de Investigação em Digitalização e Robótica Inteligente). Assim foi criado o projeto AUTENT+, um projeto financiado pelo Instituto de Financiamento da Agricultura e Pescas (IFAP), em resultado da candidatura submetida ao Plano Apícola Nacional (PAN) 2020/2022, medida 5.1 "Apoio a projetas de investigação aplicada”. O AUTENT + tem como principal objetivo a valorização do mel nacional como um produto autêntico e sustentável, através de abordagens que visam diferenciar, acrescentar valor e o potencial de mercado a este produto. Para tal, o projeto centra-se no desenvolvimento de metodologias inovadoras com vista à deteção de adulterações do mel, em particular no que respeita à origem botânica e entomológica/geográfica, e no desenvolvimento de ferramentas que permitam , de uma forma simples, informar o consumidor sobre as caraterísticas do produto que adquirem.
- Correction to: Invasion genetics of the Asian hornet Vespa velutina nigrithorax in Southern EuropePublication . Quaresma, Andreia; Henriques, Dora; Godinho, Joana; Maside, Xulio; Bortolotti, Laura; Pinto, M. AliceIn the original publication of the article, the fourth author’s family name and affiliations were published incorrectly. The correct author’s name and affiliations are given in this correction. The original article has been corrected.
- Patterns of Vespa velutina invasion in western Iberia and Italy as revealed by mitochondrial and microsatellite markersPublication . Quaresma, Andreia; Pinto, M. Alice; Henriques, DoraThe Yellow-legged or Asian hornet, Vespa velutina nigrithorax, is naturally distributed in Southeast Asia, and it is the first successful exotic Vespidae predator to be accidently introduced in Europe. In 2004, the first individual was reported in France, probably from China and, in the last decade, it spread rapidly through the French territory and to other European countries. In the Iberian Peninsula it was reported for the first time in Spain, in 2010, and in Portugal, in 2011. In 2012, two individuals were reported in the Italian region of Liguria. Using a population genetics framework, the goal of this study was to test the genetic patterns of colonization of this invasive honey bee predator in the Atlantic side of Iberia and in Italy. A total of 246 individuals, each representing a single colony, were collected across the invaded areas in Portugal (190), Spain (45), and Italy (11). Additionally, a dataset containing samples from France, Vietnam, South Korea, Indonesia and two provinces of China provided by Arca et al. (2015) was used as a reference for testing hypothesis about the origin of the invasion and the expansion patterns. The genetic variability was assessed using 16 microsatellite loci and the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) cytochrome C oxidase I (COI). The mtDNA analysis revealed the presence of a single haplotype in Iberia and Italy, which has been also reported for France and the UK. Microsatellite analysis showed a low genetic diversity in these populations, as it is expected from an expansion of an invasive species. Population structure analysis showed that the European populations separate in two clusters: (i) one that contains the populations from France and Italy, and (ii) one with the Portuguese individuals. The Spanish population has individuals in both clusters, while the Portuguese population showed some migrants that cluster with the French individuals. Thus, it was demonstrated that the expansion of the Asian hornet is different in the three countries. Spain and Italy showed a natural spread of the hornet, whereas the Portuguese population showed a human-mediated diffusion together with a natural spread of the Asian hornet.
- Next-generation sequencing as a promising approach for assessing the entomological origin of honeyPublication . Honrado, Mónica; Quaresma, Andreia; Pinto, M. Alice; Henriques, Dora; Amaral, Joana S.Honey is a food widely consumed worldwide and much appreciated for its nutritional and organoleptic properties as well as for its beneficial health effects. However, honey is also considered one of the foods most prone to be adulterated either by the admixing of honey with lower quality, by the addition of sugars, or by mislabeling of botanical and geographical origins, among other possible frauds.1 Therefore, typically, honey authentication has focused mainly on the development of techniques targeting these types of frauds. Recently, increased attention has been paid to honey’s entomological origin since it also relates with geographical origin whose label non-compliances are difficult to detect. Moreover, in the current context where native honeybees are increasingly threatened by introgression, due to the use of exotic queens, preservation of honeybee subspecies in their native ranges, to which they are better adapted, is perceived as of high importance. In this sense, valorisation of the honey produced by native subspecies has been suggested as a possible approach to generate higher income for beekeepers, contributing to the development of rural regions and of sustainable beekeeping based on conservation strategies
- Conservation of European M-lineage honey bees using abdominal colour as an indicator of subspecies purity has pitfallsPublication . Henriques, Dora; Lopes, Ana; Ferrari, Roberto; Neves, Cátia J.; Quaresma, Andreia; Browne, Keith A.; McCormack, Grace P.; Pinto, M. AliceThere are 31 honey bee (Apis mellifera) recognized subspecies, which have been grouped into four main lineages. Two of these lineages occur naturally in Europe: M in western and northern Europe and C in southeastern Europe. In Europe, M-lineage groups only two subspecies, Apis mellifera mellifera and Apis mellifera iberiensis, both being black in colour. C-Lineage groups have instead eight subspecies, including one of the beekeepers-favored and phenotypically distinct, the yellow Apis mellifera ligustica from Italy. M-lineage honey bees’ distribution has been changing and in some countries, the native bee is being replaced or hybridised with C-lineage subspecies. Honey bee abdominal pigmentation is one of the most recognisable traits and it has been used by beekeepers as an indicator of subspecies identity. However, this approach may negatively impact population diversity and is futile if there is no association between tergite colour patterns and genetic background. To test this approach, we calculated the introgression level of A. m. mellifera (N=162) and A. m. iberiensis individuals (N=559) with different colour phenotypes and from a wide geographical range using informative SNPs. In this study, many A. m. mellifera samples showed high levels of C-lineage introgression. The individuals collected in Iberia were revealed to be pure. Introgressed A. m. iberiensis individuals were all from the Azores, where a high frequency of C-lineage mitotypes exists in several islands. Our results showed that for both subspecies, it is not possible to directly identify introgressed individuals from observed colour patterns, as we found black honey bees with a considerable amount of introgression and honey bees with yellow banding that were pure or marginally introgressed. With this study, we hope to increase awareness among stakeholders of the need to use other tools to select honey bees for conservation and breeding purposes.
- Caracterização genética da Vespa velutina em PortugalPublication . Quaresma, Andreia; Henriques, Dora; Godinho, Joana; Pinto, M. AliceA vespa asiática (Vespa velutina nigrithorax) é originária do Sudeste Asiático. Em 2004 foi vista pela primeira vez em território Francês, onde foi introduzida acidentalmente, e onde, na última década, se espalhou rapidamente, tendo começado a invadir outros territórios europeus. Na Península Ibérica, foi vista pela primeira vez em 2010 em Espanha e em 2011 em Portugal. Através da genética das populações é possível inferir sobre os padrões de invasão desta espécie em Portugal. Assim, de forma a ter uma amostragem representativa do território invadido, foram recolhidas um total de 191 amostras, cada uma representando uma colonia. Com o fim de estimar a estrutura populacional e a forma de invasão desta espécie em Portugal, a sua variabilidade genética foi estudada através de 17 microssatélites. Os resultados obtidos mostram que esta população sofreu um bottleneck apresentando um reduzido número de alelos, o que está de acordo com outros estudos europeus. Estes resultados sugerem ainda a entrada de um pequeno número de indivíduos ou de uma rainha fecundada por vários machos na Europa. Com esta informação é possível inferir dados sobre o ciclo de vida da V. velutina que poderão ajudar a explicar o seu sucesso demográfico nas áreas invadidas.
- High resolution melting analysis of a COI mini-barcode as a simple approach for the entomological authentication of honeyPublication . Honrado, Mónica; Pinto, M. Alice; Lopes, Ana; Henriques, Dora; Quaresma, Andreia; Amaral, Joana S.Honey is highly valued for its taste, aroma, content in bioactive compounds and for being a natural food. In the European Union (EU), market demand for honey is higher than the domestic production and therefore a substantial amount of honey is imported. According to a 2014 European Parliament report on fraud in the food chain, honey was ranked as the 6th food product most prone to adulterateration.1 Up until now, honey authenticity addressed mainly sugars addition and botanical origin. However, an increased attention has recently been paid to honey entomological origin as it also relates to its geographical origin since honeybees carrying mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of distinct ancestries can be found across Europe. While in Portugal the predominant mtDNA of the autochthonous subspecies Apis mellifera iberiensis belongs to the A-lineage, when moving towards the northeastern part of the Iberian Peninsula this lineage is gradually replaced by the M-lineage. The native distribution of the M-lineage A. m. mellifera expands from the Pyrenees to Scandinavia and from the British Isles to the Ural Mountains while the C-lineage A. m. ligustica and A. m. carnica are naturally found in the Apennine and Balkan peninsulas, respectively
- Estudo genético da invasão da vespa asiática (Vespa velutina nigrithorax) no sul da EuropaPublication . Quaresma, Andreia; Henriques, Dora; Godinho, Joana; Maside, Xulio; Bortolotti, Laura; Pinto, M. AliceA Vespa velutina (Vespidae), também conhecida como vespa asiática, partilha com outros himenópteros um conjunto de características biológicas únicas (e.g. vida colonial, sistema de castas, divisão de tarefas), as quais têm contribuído de forma inequívoca para o sucesso das inúmeras invasões biológicas causadas por estes insetos sociais. Nas últimas décadas, mais de 30 espécies da família Vespidae foram acidentalmente introduzidas em todo o mundo (Beggs et al. 2011). A Europa manteve-se livre destes poderosos invasores até 2004, ano em que a vespa asiática foi avistada pela primeira vez em Nérac, Lot-et-Garonne, França (Villemant et al. 2006). Desde então, a vespa asiática tem-se expandido rapidamente pela maior parte da Europa ocidental e já se encontra em pelo menos nove países vizinhos da França. A primeira incursão deste invasor fora de França ocorreu na localidade espanhola de Amaiur (Navarra), que se situa a 180 km a sul de Nérac (López et al. 2011), seis anos após a introdução. Depois de Espanha, a chegada da V. velutina a outros países foi muito rápida. Na Bélgica (Rome et al. 2013) e em Portugal (Grosso-Silva e Maia 2012) os primeiros indivíduos foram avistados em 2011, em Itália em 2012 (Demichelis et al. 2014), na Alemanha em 2014 (Witt 2015), na Grã-Bretanha (Budge et al. 2017) e nos Países Baixos em 2016 (Smit et al. 2018), na Suíça em 2017 (Poidatz et al. 2018) e 2021 na Irlanda. A vespa asiática ocupa assim uma vasta área do território Europeu, a qual continua a crescer.