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Project Topic
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The honeybee (Apis mellifera) is a human-managed insect playing a pivotal role in crop and wild plant pollination. Thanks to its activity, crops improve qualitative and quantitatively and plants protect themselves against pests. FAO estimated that approximately one-third of all plants or plant products consumed by humans and used for animal feeding depend directly or indirectly on bee pollination. Additionally, honeybees produce honey -a traditional Mediterranean food- and other products. Beekeeping provides subsistence to hundreds of thousands of beekeepers in the Mediterranean area. This activity is supported by a range of different native subspecies, which evolved as a result of environmental selection. Actions directed to the conservation of A. mellifera subspecies in the Mediterranean are expected to promote quantity and quality of crops, with a direct increase in food availability, therefore contributing to tackling the problem of food security in an efficient, cost-effective and sustainable way. Climate change is expected to increase the stress factors affecting honeybees, especially in the Mediterranean, reducing both pollination efficiency and production potential. Unfortunately, our ability to tackle this problem is limited by our incomplete understanding of the adaptation mechanisms developed by the different subspecies. The goals of the MEDIBEES project are to a) unravel the differential genetic background of the Mediterranean subspecies, b) understand their adaptation to the local conditions, c) assess their conservation status, and d) assess their resilience to climate change. Besides, the valorisation of honey and beekeeping by-products will be approached to help the beekeepers improve both income and sustainability of their activity. The project includes 9 partners from 8 Mediterranean countries, covering a remarkable and poorly understood proportion of A. mellifera genetic diversity, i.e. 10 local subspecies adapted to highly diverse environmental conditions of the region. To reach the objectives, a large-scale sampling encompassing the natural distribution of subspecies and a wide variety of environments (WP2) will be performed to allow genome-wide scans (WP4). Also, both phenotype of colonies belonging to local subspecies and environmental conditions will be monitored in apiaries across the Mediterranean and these will serve simultaneously experimental and demonstrational purposes (WP2). Laboratory assays exposing individual bees from the experimental apiaries to the main stressors will allow us to comparatively evaluate the subspecies adaptation and understand how individual traits convert into colony resilience. This will be approached by studies covering survival, resistance to pathogens, behaviour, physiology, and reproduction using gene expression, transcriptomic assays (WP3) and genomics (WP4). The collected samples will be genotyped with a 10k high-density SNP chip herein developed. The genotypic data promises to advance our current understanding on adaptation and resilience to environmental stressors and on the conservation status of A. mellifera. This effort will encourage the use of local subspecies and set the baseline for future breeding programs. At the same time, characterization of honeys will help promote local productions. The potential use in agriculture of beekeeping organic by-products will evaluate their effect on soil fertility and biota. MEDIBEES will generate new knowledge on the genetics of bees and their adaptation to climate change, develop new genetic tools to promote the selection of resilient A. mellifera breeds, train beekeepers (directly involved in the project) to valorise beekeeping products and by-products. Knowledge and tools developed will be shared between the partners, to increase the laboratory expertise in each country. These actions will contribute to guarantee food security, nutrition, health, wellbeing, and mitigate migration problems upstream.
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