Comparison of four mating systems for maintenance of honeybee colonies in terms of the inbreeding coefficient and effective population size

• NOMURA Tetsuro

  Department of Bioresource and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, Kyoto Sangyo University, Kyoto 603-8555, Japan

• TAKAHASHI Jun-ichi

  Department of Bioresource and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, Kyoto Sangyo University, Kyoto 603-8555, Japan

Abstract

Honeybees show inbreeding depression for various traits both in queens and in workers. Increased homozygosity at the complementary sex determination locus due to inbreeding produces lethality or sterility in males, and consequently reduces the productivity of the colony. In the present study, assuming a condition where mating is controlled by artificial insemination, we consider the following four mating systems for reducing the harmful effects of inbreeding in the maintenance of honeybee colonies. In the first system (RS-RM), parents of the next generation are randomly selected from the progeny pooled over colonies, and breeding groups are established by randomly dividing the selected progeny. In the second system (WS-RM), selection is carried out within a colony, and breeding groups of the next generation are established from the selected individuals in the same way as for RS-RM. In the third system (WS-RGM), after the within-colony selection as in WS-RM, males selected from the same colony are randomly assigned to each queen to establish breeding groups. The final system (WS-NGM) is similar to WS-RGM, but breeding groups are formed so as to completely avoid sib-mating. These systems are compared here by deterministic simulation in terms of the inbreeding coefficient and effective population size. Compared to RS-RM, the three systems with within-colony selection (WS-RM, WS-RGM and WS-NGM) effectively reduce the inbreeding coefficient in the initial generations. Among these three systems, WS-NGM gives the lowest initial inbreeding coefficient. Although the largest effective population size is attained under WS-RGM, many generations are required for achieving a lower inbreeding coefficient than WS-NGM. It is concluded that WS-NGM is the most highly recommended system for practical use.

Journal

• The Journal of Animal Genetics

  The Journal of Animal Genetics 46 (1), 3-10, 2018

  Japanese Society of Animal Breeding and Genetics

Keywords

• Honeybee
• Maintenance of colonies
• Mating system
• Inbreeding coefficient
• Effective population size

Details

• CRID: 1390282680189769344
• NII Article ID: 130006606852
• NII Book ID: AA11636975
• DOI: 10.5924/abgri.46.3
• ISSN: 18843883
• ISSN: 13459961
• NDL BIB ID: 028863750
• Web Site: http://id.ndl.go.jp/bib/028863750
• Web Site: https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R000000004-I028863750
• Web Site: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/abgri/46/1/46_3/_pdf
• Text Lang: ja
• Data Source:
  • JaLC
  • NDL
  • Crossref
  • CiNii Articles
  • KAKEN
• Abstract License Flag: Disallowed