From Bee World- 

A new A. mellifera subspecies was found in China that's closely related to A. m. mellifera. The genome work revealed the coding of genes involved in flight muscle signaling during cold conditions and some that support the regulation of fat storage making this subspecies suited for cold weather survival. Could be a useful addition to our domestic gene pool.  

Abstract:

>Studying the genetic signatures of climate-driven selection can produce insights into local adaptation and the potential impacts of climate change on populations. The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is an interesting species to study local adaptation because it originated in tropical/subtropical climatic regions and subsequently spread into temperate regions. However, little is known about the genetic basis of its adaptation to temperate climates. Here, we resequenced the whole genomes of ten individual bees from a newly discovered population in temperate China and downloaded resequenced data from 35 individuals from other populations. We found that the new population is an undescribed subspecies in the M-lineage of A. mellifera (Apis mellifera sinisxinyuan). Analyses of population history show that long-term global temperature has strongly influenced the demographic history of A. m. sinisxinyuan and its divergence from other subspecies. Further analyses comparing temperate and tropical populations identified several candidate genes related to fat body and the Hippo signaling pathway that are potentially involved in adaptation to temperate climates. Our results provide insights into the demographic history of the newly discovered A. m. sinisxinyuan, as well as the genetic basis of adaptation of A. mellifera to temperate climates at the genomic level. These findings will facilitate the selective breeding of A. mellifera to improve the survival of overwintering colonies.

>Apis mellifera sinisxinyuan is a dark bee with black abdomens and gray hair. Worker bees have very long abdominal hair, longer than the European dark bee, A. m. mellifera, and almost twice as long as A. m. ligustica and A. m. pomonella. The body is slender and small, considerably smaller than its relative A. m. mellifera. The cubital index, sternite 6 index, and tarsus index of A. m. sinisxinyuan are comparable to that of A. m. mellifera. In addition, proboscis 
of Xinyuan honey bees is short. Mean values and standard deviation of selected morphometric characters are presented in supplementary table S7,
Supplementary Material online. Workers bees of A. m. sinisxinyuan are very aggressive. Preliminary observations found that it has excellent overwintering ability, and the temperature threshold for worker bees to take cleaning flights and to collect honey is low. It is also featured by fast spring build up and high honey production (Liuz et al., unpublished data)


>Genomic Analyses Reveal Demographic History and Temperate Adaptation of the Newly Discovered Honey Bee Subspecies Apis
mellifera sinisxinyuan n. ssp
Chao Chen, et al. 

>Institute of Apicultural Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China


Bill Hesbach

Cheshire CT. 

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