Heritability studies of hygienic behavior concur that the trait is heritable to some
degree, suggesting that there is some potential for promoting this
trait through selective bee breeding.

Unfortunately, conventional breeding methods are only partially
applicable to this aim for two reasons: this behavior is observed only
in workers (only queens and drones are fertile), and it occurs at a
very low frequency which is difficult to measure.

The most specific behavior is the
detection of the Varroa parasitized brood cell through the cell caps.
In an unselected population, less than 1% of the bees show this behavior.

Consequently, it is of major interest to know the genes involved in
this special component of the resistance mechanism.

For this study, 22,000 individually labeled bees were
video-monitored and a sample of 122 cases and 122 controls was
collected and analyzed to determine the dependence / independence
of SNP genotypes from hygienic and non-hygienic behavior on a
genome-wide scale. After false-discovery rate correction of the pvalues,
six SNP markers had highly significant associations with the trait investigated.

Spötter, A., Gupta, P., Mayer, M., Reinsch, N., & Bienefeld, K. (2016). 
Genome-wide association study of a Varroa-specific defense behavior in honeybees (Apis mellifera). 
Journal of Heredity, Advance Access published January 16, 2016

* * *

SNPs refer to "single nucleotide polymorphisms", which are genetic variants usually caused by copy errors. Most SNPs have no effect on health or development. They can be used to help identify specific genetic variants which may express significant genetic differences. The SNP is not necessarily responsible for the change in the trait, but it may serve as a "flag" for that trait.

PLB

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