2018
DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2018.00316
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Conservation Genomics of the Declining North American Bumblebee Bombus terricola Reveals Inbreeding and Selection on Immune Genes

Abstract: The yellow-banded bumblebee Bombus terricola was common in North America but has recently declined and is now on the IUCN Red List of threatened species. The causes of B. terricola’s decline are not well understood. Our objectives were to create a partial genome and then use this to estimate population data of conservation interest, and to determine whether genes showing signs of recent selection suggest a specific cause of decline. First, we generated a draft partial genome (contig set) for B. terricola, sequ… Show more

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Cited by 38 publications
(44 citation statements)
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References 79 publications
(106 reference statements)
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“…Recent additions of eight species of wild bees, including the rusty patched bumble bee (B. affinis), to the US endangered species list, and the imperiled status of franklin's bumble bee (B. franklini) on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list of endangered species, highlight the severity of these declines [11]. Stressors including pesticides, pathogens, habitat destruction, and nutritional deficiencies have been implicated [12][13][14]. Within the existing bee literature, drones are often overlooked and not included in research studies, with the thought that the caste is only important for copulation and little more.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Recent additions of eight species of wild bees, including the rusty patched bumble bee (B. affinis), to the US endangered species list, and the imperiled status of franklin's bumble bee (B. franklini) on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list of endangered species, highlight the severity of these declines [11]. Stressors including pesticides, pathogens, habitat destruction, and nutritional deficiencies have been implicated [12][13][14]. Within the existing bee literature, drones are often overlooked and not included in research studies, with the thought that the caste is only important for copulation and little more.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The presence and looming establishment of B. impatiens in south-eastern Alberta thus presents a great risk to native prairie bumble bees, particularly the three nationally assessed species that have undergone declines in other parts of Canada. Recently, Kent et al (2018) reported on the conservation genomics of B. terricola populations in Ontario and Quebec. According to that study, B. terricola likely underwent a severe population crash after the last Ice Age, resulting in small, inbred populations (Kent et al 2018).…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Recently, Kent et al (2018) reported on the conservation genomics of B. terricola populations in Ontario and Quebec. According to that study, B. terricola likely underwent a severe population crash after the last Ice Age, resulting in small, inbred populations (Kent et al 2018). Although this species subsequently expanded and became established throughout much of Canada and the United States (Williams et al 2014), rapid declines have been observed in recent decades (Grixti et al 2009, Cameron et al 2011, Colla et al 2012, Sheffield et al 2016).…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Basic assembly statistics (genome length, number of scaffolds, GC content, and N50) were generated using QUAST v5.0 ( Gurevich et al 2013 ). We expected assemblies to be ∼250 Mb in size with a 38% GC content based on other Bombus genomes ( Sadd et al 2015 ; Kent et al 2018 ). We examine genome completeness using BUSCO v4 ( Simão et al 2015 ) to search for orthologous genes using the OrthoDB v.10 ( Kriventseva et al 2019 ) Hymenopteran dataset (n = 5,991 genes) and using the bombus_impateins1 AUGUSTUS ( Stanke and Morgenstern 2005 ) species parameter to optimize gene prediction.…”
Section: Methodsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Bumble bees also have a long history of study with respect to adaptations in traits like thermoregulation, flight biomechanics, host-parasite interactions, and evolution of sociality, and the advent of genomic tools has greatly accelerated our understanding of their biology ( Woodard et al 2015 ; Lozier and Zayed 2016 ). However, there remain a limited number of genetic resources to study such adaptive traits and help conservation efforts, with only two annotated reference genomes available on the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) for B. terrestris and B. impatiens ( Sadd et al 2015 ) and one additional genome published for B. terricola ( Kent et al 2018 ). Species-specific reference genomes can be valuable for addressing population genetic questions about novel targets of selection, comparing structural genetic variation within and between species, and more accurate functional genomics studies including transcriptomics (RNAseq) or epigenetics ( e.g.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%