The past several decades have been hard on Apis mellifera, the Western honey bee. Originally native to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, Western honey bees have spread worldwide thanks to the nutritional and medicinal value of their honey, pollen, royal jelly, beeswax, propolis, and venom. Even more recently, the rise of the mobile hive and increased demand for pollination services have resulted in an army of bees being unleashed on crops each year, most notably almonds, which require several million bee visits per acre. At the same time, the last 50 years have seen dramatic declines in honey bee populations due to pesticide use, climate change, and habitat destruction. Most notably, the spread of the parasitic mite Varroa destructor from Asia to Western Europe and North America in the 1970s decimated A. mellifera colonies, making it nearly impossible for honey bees to survive without human intervention and resulting in the loss of the vast majority of wild and feral honey bee colonies. Given this decline, scientists have speculated that loss of genetic diversity among honey bees may be contributing to further losses in bee populations. A new study in Genome Biology and Evolution, titled “Digging into the genomic past of Swiss honey bees by whole-genome sequencing museum specimens,” provides evidence that disputes this theory (Parejo et al. 2020), suggesting that loss of genetic diversity may not be among the long list of threats to bee survival.

中文翻译：

---

亮点：博物馆标本揭示蜜蜂的秘密多样性

在过去的几十年里，西方蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）的日子不好过。西方蜜蜂最初原产于欧洲、非洲和中东，由于其蜂蜜、花粉、蜂王浆、蜂蜡、蜂胶和毒液的营养和药用价值，已在世界范围内传播。甚至在最近，移动蜂巢的兴起和对授粉服务需求的增加导致每年都有大批蜜蜂被释放到农作物上，最显着的是杏仁，每英亩需要数百万蜜蜂访问。与此同时，由于农药使用、气候变化和栖息地破坏，过去 50 年来蜜蜂数量急剧下降。最值得注意的是，寄生螨Varroa destructor的传播从亚洲到西欧和北美在20世纪70年代锐减西方蜜蜂的殖民地，使其成为几乎不可能的蜜蜂在没有人为干预，致使绝大多数野生和野生蜂蜜蜂群损失生存。鉴于这种下降，科学家们推测蜜蜂遗传多样性的丧失可能导致蜜蜂种群的进一步减少。一项名为“通过全基因组测序博物馆标本挖掘瑞士蜜蜂的基因组过去”的基因组生物学与进化新研究提供了对这一理论提出质疑的证据（Parejo 等人，2020 年），表明遗传多样性的丧失可能不要成为蜜蜂生存威胁的一长串清单。