About
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Introduction
I am post-doctoral researcher interested in the field of Applied hologenomics currently working in the field of apiculture and honey bee genomics at the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain, in collaboration with the Swiss Bee Research Center. Since September 2018, I have also been assigned Assistant Editor for the Journal of Apicultural Research published on behalf of IBRA (International Bee Research Association).
Education
September 2011 - July 2013
September 2007 - August 2010
Publications
Publications (44)
Geographically isolated mating stations are deployed across Europe to facilitate controlled mating with selected drone-producing colonies. To assess the reliability of these stations, we developed a paternity assignment test using a custom Illumina genotyping chip with 6457 SNPs based on two metrics (number of mismatch alleles and kinship). The met...
Honey bee, Apis mellifera, drones are typically haploid, developing from an unfertilized egg, inheriting only their queen’s alleles and none from the many drones she mated with. Thus the ordered combination or ‘phase’ of alleles is known, making drones a valuable haplotype resource. We collated whole-genome sequence data for 1,407 drones, including...
Honeybee health and the species’ gut microbiota are interconnected. Also noteworthy are the multiple niches present within hives, each with distinct microbiotas and all coexisting, which we termed “apibiome”. External stressors (e.g. anthropization) can compromise microbial balance and bee resilience. We hypothesised that (1) the bacterial communit...
Monitoring virus infections can be an important selection tool in honey bee breeding. A recent study pointed towards an association between the virus-free status of eggs and an increased virus resistance to deformed wing virus (DWV) at the colony level. In this study, eggs from both naturally surviving and traditionally managed colonies from across...
European foulbrood (EFB) is a honey bee brood disease caused by the bacterium Melissococcus plutonius. Large-scale EFB outbreaks have been reported in several countries in recent decades, which entail costly sanitation measures of affected apiaries to restrict the spread of this contagious pathogen. To mitigate its impact, a better understanding of...
Honey bee subspecies originate from specific geographic areas in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and beekeepers interested in specific phenotypes have imported genetic material to regions outside of their original range for use either in pure lines or controlled crosses. Moreover, imported drones are present in the environment and mate naturall...
Metagenomic datasets of host‐associated microbial communities often contain host DNA that is usually discarded because the amount of data is too low for accurate host genetic analyses. However, genotype imputation can be employed to reconstruct host genotypes if a reference panel is available. Here, the performance of a two‐step strategy is tested...
The ‘suppressed in-ovo virus infection’ trait (SOV) was the first trait applied in honey bee breeding programs aimed to increase resilience to virus infections, a major threat for colony survival. By screening drone eggs for viruses, the SOV trait scores the antiviral resistance of queens and its implications for vertical transmission. In this stud...
Background:
Whole-genome sequencing has become routine for population genetic studies. Sequencing of individuals provides maximal data but is rather expensive and fewer samples can be studied. In contrast, sequencing a pool of samples (pool-seq) can provide sufficient data, while presenting less of an economic challenge. Few studies have compared...
Metagenomic data sets of host-associated microbial communities often contain host DNA that is usually discarded because the amount of data is too low for accurate host genetic analyses. However, if a reference panel is available, genotype imputation can be employed to reconstruct host genotypes and maximise the use of such a priori useless data. We...
Dans le cadre du projet de recherche européen SmartBees, auquel le CRA a contribué, un outil d'identification génétique des sous-espèces a été développé sur la base d'un échantillonnage étendu de la diversité des abeilles mellifères en Europe. Cet outil uti-lise un modèle d'apprentissage automatique pour classer les échantillons d'abeilles en 14 so...
Honey bee subspecies originate from specific geographic areas in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. The interest of beekeepers in specific phenotypes has led them to import subspecies to regions outside of their original range. The resulting admixture complicates population genetics analyses and populations stratification can be a major problem fo...
Background
With numerous endemic subspecies representing four of its five evolutionary lineages, Europe holds a large fraction of Apis mellifera genetic diversity. This diversity and the natural distribution range have been altered by anthropogenic factors. The conservation of this natural heritage relies on the availability of accurate tools for s...
Am Beispiel der Schweizer Honigbienen wurde in einem Forschungsprojekt des ZBF in Zusammenarbeit mit der Universität Bilbao untersucht, inwiefern die Veränderungen der imkerlichen und landwirtschaftlichen Praxis sowie der Umwelt die genetische Vielfalt im Laufe des letzten Jahrhunderts beeinflusst und welche Spuren diese auf dem Genom der Bienen hi...
Dans une étude du Centre de recherche apicole réalisée en collaboration avec l’Université de Bilbao, des chercheuses et chercheurs ont étudié, à l’exemple de l’abeille
mellifère suisse, dans quelle mesure les changements qui ont eu lieu dans la pratique
apicole et agricole ainsi que dans l’environnement ont influencé la diversité génétique au cou...
In the fight against the Varroa destructor mite, selective breeding of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) populations that are resistant to the parasitic mite stands as a sustainable solution. Selection initiatives indicate that using the suppressed mite reproduction (SMR) trait as a selection criterion is a suitable tool to breed such resistant bee pop...
Historical specimens in museum collections provide opportunities to gain insights into the genomic past. For the Western honey bee, Apis mellifera L., this is particularly important since its populations are currently under threat worldwide and have experienced many changes in management and environment over the last century. Using Swiss Apis melli...
Throughout western Europe, the endemic honeybee subspecies Apis mellifera mellifera, the black bee, has gradually been replaced in many beekeeper operations by other subspecies and hybrids of A. m. ligustica, A. m. carnica, A.m. caucasica, (C-type bees) and A. m. mellifera (M-type bees), which were found to be more efficient producers of honey or r...
On the graph on the left 3000+ honey bees collected across Europe are differentiated into subspecies and local ecotypes using the 4000+ SNPs developed in SmartBees. In the top a cluster of samples consisting of O-lineage bees, to the right M-lineage bees, to the left C-lineage bees and central the A-lineage bees. Subspecies that appear in close pro...
The genetic identity of the dark European honey bee, Apis mellifera mellifera is currently under pressure throughout most of its native range due to large scale commercial trade and replacement with honey bees of mainly Eastern European ancestry (C-lineage: Apis mellifera carnica and Apis mellifera ligustica). To counteract this process, numerous c...
The natural distribution of the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) has been changed by humans in recent decades to such an extent that the formerly widest-spread European subspecies, Apis mellifera mellifera, is threatened by extinction through introgression from highly divergent commercial strains in large tracts of its range. Conservation efforts for A...
The most important managed pollinator, the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.), has been subject to a growing number of threats. In Western Europe one such threat is large-scale introductions of commercial strains (C-lineage ancestry), which is leading to introgressive hybridization and even the local extinction of native honeybee populations (M-lineage a...
Figure S1 Manhattan plots of the three employed statistics to infer selection signatures (F
ST, XP‐EHH, and XP‐CLR) in windows of 2 kb.
Table S1 Further information on sample origin and data availability.
Figure S2 (a) Haplotype distribution of sweep region B in the Swiss and French populations, and (b) corresponding haplotype blocks per individual.
Appendix S1 Materials and methods.
Human-mediated selection has left signatures in the genomes of many domesticated animals, including the European dark honeybee, Apis mellifera mellifera, which has been selected by apiculturists for centuries. Using whole-genome sequence information, we investigated selection signatures in spatially separated honeybee subpopulations (Switzerland, n...
Pollination is a key ecosystem service for agricultural systems and Western honey bees, Apis mellifera, are the most important managed pollinators. Major losses of managed honey bee colonies reinforced the need to take advantage of locally adapted subspecies and ecotypes to buffer populations against various stressors. However, introductions of non...
