Molekulare Grundlagen der Genom-Interaktion zwischen der Honigbiene Apis mellifera und einer evolutiv alten und rezent eingeführten Nosema Art

The honeybee, Apis mellifera, and two Microsporidian parasites, Nosema apis and N. ceranae will be used to study coevolutionary mechanisms of host resistance and parasite virulence. N. apis is an evolutionary old and well adapted parasite of the honeybee whereas N. ceranaeis a novel, highly virulent, and potentially mal-adapted parasite of A. mellifera that recently swapped hosts from A. cerana.We will use the sequenced genome of A. mellifera and genomic tools to take advantage of the haploid drones as simple genetic test organisms in evolutionary genetics studies. We will identify major quantitative trait loci responsible for resistance to N. ceranae, N. apis and mixed infections testing drones, which are offspring of hybrid queens of susceptible and more resistant lineages. We will search for selective sweeps in natural populations with recent N. ceranae epidemics and screen the recombination rate in these regions to test for predictions made by the Red Queen theory. We will compare the transcriptome of drones and workers to asses the impact of heterozygosity on parasite resistance, and test for the selection potential of virulence and its trade off with transmission ability in Nosema. Finally, we will identify between parasite selection within the honeybee host.