Data from: Gentle Africanized bees on an oceanic island

Oceanic islands have reduced resources and natural enemies and potentially affect life history traits of arriving organisms. Among the most spectacular invasions in the Western hemisphere is that of the Africanized honey bee. We hypothesized that in the oceanic island Puerto Rico Africanized bees will exhibit differences from the mainland population such as for defensiveness and other linked traits. We evaluated the extent of Africanization through three typical Africanized traits: wing size, defensive behavior, and resistance to Varroa destructor mites. All sampled colonies were Africanized by maternal descent, with over 65% presence of European alleles at the S-3 nuclear locus. In two assays evaluating defense, Puerto Rican bees showed low defensiveness similar to European bees. In morphology and resistance to mites Africanized bees from Puerto Rico are similar to other Africanized bees. In behavioral assays on mechanisms of resistance to Varroa, we directly observed that Puerto Rican Africanized bees groomed-off and bit the mites as been observed in other studies. In no other location Africanized bees have reduced defensiveness while retaining typical traits such as wing size and mite resistance. This mosaic of traits that has resulted during the invasion of an oceanic island has implications for behavior, evolution, and agriculture.大洋岛屿资源禀赋有限且本地天敌匮乏，可对迁入物种的生活史性状产生潜在影响。西半球最引人注目的生物入侵事件之一，当属非洲化蜜蜂（Africanized honey bee）的入侵。本研究提出假说：位于大洋岛屿的波多黎各非洲化蜜蜂，其与大陆种群在防御行为及相关联性状上可能存在差异。本研究通过三项典型非洲化蜜蜂性状——翅型大小、防御行为及对狄斯瓦螨（Varroa destructor）的抗性——评估了非洲化程度。所有采样蜂群均为母系起源的非洲化蜂群，在S-3核基因座上有超过65%的比例携带欧洲等位基因。在两项防御行为评估实验中，波多黎各非洲化蜜蜂表现出较低的防御性，与欧洲蜜蜂相近。在形态学特征与螨类抗性方面，波多黎各的非洲化蜜蜂与其他地区的非洲化蜜蜂并无显著差异。在针对狄斯瓦螨抗性机制的行为实验中，本研究直接观察到波多黎各非洲化蜜蜂会清理并啃咬螨类，这一现象已在其他研究中被报道。目前尚无其他地区的非洲化蜜蜂在保留翅型大小、螨类抗性等典型非洲化性状的同时，出现防御性降低的情况。这种在大洋岛屿入侵过程中形成的性状镶嵌格局，对行为学、进化生物学及农业生产均具有重要意义。