Searching for signatures of selection in Iberian honey bee (Apis mellifera iberiensis) using whole genome sequences.

Abstract

The Iberian Peninsula comprises a diverse set of habitats. It was an important glacial refugium during the Pleistocene and has served as a bridge for populations migrating between Africa and Europe, resulting in a complex mix of ancestry and diversity. The Iberian honey bee (A. m. iberiensis) is no exception and has been the subject of numerous incongruent population genetic surveys. Recent mtDNA and SNP analyses indicate a steep northeastern-southwestern cline of African-European ancestry along the peninsula, which has been explained by selection and demo. Advances in DNA sequencing technology and computational tools provide unprecedented opportunities to study demography, search for signatures of selection across the genome and illuminate its role in shaping genomic diversity. We used Illumina technology to sequence the whole genomes of 86 Iberian honeybees. To verify whether there are signals of genetic adaptation we have done simple pairwise comparisons between populations located in extremes of environmental variables, like precipitation and temperature.