Bumblebees are a diverse group of globally important pollinators in natural ecosystems and for agricultural food production. With both eusocial and solitary life-cycle phases, and some social parasite species, they are especially interesting models to understand social evolution, behavior, and ecology. Reports of many species in decline point to pathogen transmission, habitat loss, pesticide usage, and global climate change, as interconnected causes. These threats to bumblebee diversity make our reliance on a handful of well-studied species for agricultural pollination particularly precarious. To broadly sample bumblebee genomic and phenotypic diversity, we de novo sequenced and assembled the genomes of 17 species, representing all 15 subgenera, producing the first genus-wide quantification of genetic and genomic variation potentially underlying key ecological and behavioral traits. The species phylogeny resolves subgenera relationships while incomplete lineage sorting likely drives high levels of gene tree discordance. Five chromosome-level assemblies show a stable 18-chromosome karyotype, with major rearrangements creating 25 chromosomes in social parasites. Differential transposable element activity drives changes in genome sizes, with putative domestications of repetitive sequences influencing gene coding and regulatory potential. Dynamically evolving gene families and signatures of positive selection point to genus-wide variation in processes linked to foraging, diet and metabolism, immunity and detoxification, as well as adaptations for life at high altitudes. Our study reveals how bumblebee genes and genomes have evolved across the Bombus phylogeny and identifies variations potentially linked to key ecological and behavioral traits of these important pollinators.

中文翻译：

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大黄蜂基因组的全属表征提供了对其进化和生态和行为特征变异的见解。

大黄蜂是自然生态系统和农业食品生产中具有全球重要意义的传粉者的多样化群体。具有真社会和孤独的生命周期阶段，以及一些社会寄生虫物种，它们是理解社会进化、行为和生态的特别有趣的模型。许多物种数量下降的报告指出病原体传播、栖息地丧失、农药使用和全球气候变化是相互关联的原因。这些对大黄蜂多样性的威胁使我们对少数经过充分研究的物种进行农业授粉的依赖变得特别不稳定。为了广泛采样大黄蜂基因组和表型多样性，我们从头对代表所有 15 个亚属的 17 个物种的基因组进行测序和组装，首次对遗传和基因组变异进行全属量化，这些变异可能是关键生态和行为特征的潜在基础。物种系统发育解决了亚属关系，而不完整的谱系分类可能会导致基因树高度不一致。五个染色体水平的组装显示出稳定的 18 条染色体核型，主要的重排在社会寄生虫中产生了 25 条染色体。差异转座因子活性驱动基因组大小的变化，重复序列的假定驯化影响基因编码和调节潜力。动态进化的基因家族和正选择的特征表明与觅食、饮食和新陈代谢相关的过程中的全属变异，免疫和解毒，以及对高海拔生活的适应。我们的研究揭示了大黄蜂基因和基因组是如何在整个地球上进化的Bombus系统发育并确定可能与这些重要传粉媒介的关键生态和行为特征相关的变异。