A soft selective sweep during rapid evolution of gentle behaviour in an Africanized honeybee

Arian Avalos, Hailin Pan, Cai Li, Jenny P. Acevedo-Gonzalez, Gloria Rendon, Christopher J. Fields, Patrick J. Brown, Tugrul Giray, Gene E. Robinson (), Matthew E. Hudson () and Guojie Zhang ()
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Arian Avalos: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Hailin Pan: Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Cai Li: BGI-Shenzhen
Jenny P. Acevedo-Gonzalez: Universidad de Puerto Rico
Gloria Rendon: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Christopher J. Fields: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Patrick J. Brown: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Tugrul Giray: Universidad de Puerto Rico
Gene E. Robinson: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Matthew E. Hudson: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Guojie Zhang: Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Highly aggressive Africanized honeybees (AHB) invaded Puerto Rico (PR) in 1994, displacing gentle European honeybees (EHB) in many locations. Gentle AHB (gAHB), unknown anywhere else in the world, subsequently evolved on the island within a few generations. Here we sequence whole genomes from gAHB and EHB populations, as well as a North American AHB population, a likely source of the founder AHB on PR. We show that gAHB retains high levels of genetic diversity after evolution of gentle behaviour, despite selection on standing variation. We observe multiple genomic loci with significant signatures of selection. Rapid evolution during colonization of novel habitats can generate major changes to characteristics such as morphological or colouration traits, usually controlled by one or more major genetic loci. Here we describe a soft selective sweep, acting at multiple loci across the genome, that occurred during, and may have mediated, the rapid evolution of a behavioural trait.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01800-0

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