Swiss honey bee population and conservation genomics

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-native honey bees from distant lineages are likely to undermine respective conservation efforts. We take advantage of recent advances in Next Generation Sequencing to investigate conservation efforts for the native European dark honey bee, A. m. mellifera, which is currently threatened by introgression.