Genetic dissection of honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) foraging behavior

We demonstrate the effects of a new quantitative trait locus (QTL), designa ted pln3, that was mapped in a backcross population derived from strains of bees selected for the amount of pollen they store in combs. We independent ly confirmed pln3 by demonstrating its effects on individual foraging behav ior, as we did previously for QTLs pln1 and pln2 (Hunt et al. 1995), QTL pl n2 is very robust In its effects on foraging behavior. In this study, pln2 was again shown to affect individual foraging behavior of workers derived f rom a hybrid backcross of the selected strains. In addition, pln2 was shown to affect the amount of pollen stored in combs of colonies derived from a wide cross of European and Africanized honeybees. This is noteworthy becaus e it demonstrates that we can map QTLs for behavior in interstrain crosses derived from selective breeding and study their effects if; unselected, nat ural populations. The results we present also demonstrate the repeatability of finding QTLs with measurable effects, even after outcrossing selected s trains, suggesting that there is a relatively small subset of QTLs with maj or effects segregating in the population from which we selected our foundin g breeding populations. The different QTLs, pln1, pln2, and pln3, appear to have different effects, revealing the complex genetic architecture of hone ybee foraging behavior.