شناسایی جایگاه های ژنی(QTL های) صفت اولین سن جستجوگری(موثر بر صفت تولید عسل ) در زنبورعسل ایرانی (Apis mellifera meda)

Honeybee is a pollinator that has prominent role in agriculture products and nourishment for human. So, the most number of studies like genetic improvement were done on honeybee. Recent advances in knowledge of molecular genetics of bee emphasize the potential for using genetic markers to select favored traits. Division of labor in honey bees is an evolutionary phenomenon. Worker honey bees in about their third week of life start foraging outside the nest. Several factors may affect foraging and aggressive behavior of foraging bees such as genetics and physiology of forager bees and also environmental conditions. This research was done to determination polymorphism of loci of first foraging age (AFF) trait in Iranian honeybee (Apis mellifera meda).In the first phase, Two colonies with high production- long longevity and low production- short longevity were selected from 11th generation of “Iranian Breeding Honeybee Project”. ”. In the high production colony, foraging initiation had started sooner (age of 9-33 day).Also‚ the length of foraging initiation period in comparison with low production colony (age of 12-29 day) was longer. In the end of first phase, worker bees of high and low production colonies after numbering and determining of foraging initiation, were analyzed through AFLP method for appointment of loci polymorphisme. Genetic polymorphism of the loci was assessed by using 4 primer pairs. PCR products were detected using polyacrylamide gel. 26 polymorphic alleles were observed using AFLP markers. Totally‚ the most amount of Shanon Index is related to E3M2-1 locus in low production population (0.693) and also E3M3-4 position in high production population (0.693). Therefore‚ these two loci have shown most polymorphism. The least amount of Shanon Index is related to E6M3-5 locus in low production population (0.156). The highest effective allele was belonging to E3M3-4 position in high production colony and the lowest was related to E6M3-5 1 position in low production population. Heterozygosity was diverse between (0.053) in E6M3-5 to (0.05) in E3M2-1. Mean of (He) in low production colony was (0.321) and in high production colony was (0.324).Mean of Shanon Indexes were (0.490) and (0.491) respectively. Genetic variance between 2 populations was only ٪10.There was difference in production in the 2 populations but, genetic diversity is not very impressive. Genetic similarity in them may is because of using the small number of samples in this research. Considering that colonies with different genotypes have different foraging, Iranian honey bee colonies were compared in foraging behavior and pollen collecting ability using two high and low honey production colonies and their F1 backcrosses colonies. High and low production colonies were selected based the amount of honey produced in the previous year, 9-12 kg and 14-20 kg honey in low and high production colonies. After providing genetically uniform colonies and equalization of internal conditions, the number of bees flying from and returning the hive in a two-minute-period, number of workers that carrying pollen and weight of collected pollen were measured. Based on the results, onset of foraging occurred sooner in high product than in low product and uninfested colonies. The number of bees flying from and returning the hive and pollen carriers in backcrosses to high product colonies was 24.86±1.24, 26.51±1.41, 4.05±0.45 and in backcrosses to low product colonies was 18.21±0.61, 17.98±0.65, 1.51±0.14, respectively. In the end of second phase, worker bees of backcrosses to high and low production colonies after numbering and determining of foraging initiation, were analyzed through AFLP method for appointment of loci polymorphisme. The resuls of molecular analyzes in parent and backcrosses colonies were used for determining of foraging initiation locies in Iranian honeybee. Identifying the basis of quantitative trait loci (QTL) is a difficult task for the study of complex traits, such as behavioral. The honey bee is a good model combining interesting social behavior with a high recombination rate that facilitates this identification. There is a correlation between foraging behavior, performance and appearance traits with honey production. So that changes in some of these traits lead to a change in performance of colonies. Determination of honey production characteristics provide sometimes help beekeepers and researchers with identifying high-producing colonies effectively and over less time. In mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTL), the relationship between one or more markers and QTL is studied. Therefore, we constructed an amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) genetic linkage map of honey bee using 46 progenies from a BC population of the crossing between a queen from high production colony and a male from low production colony, selected from eleventh generation of honeybee breeding programe. Data were analyzed using the software Win QTL