Habitat degradation and climate change are currently threatening wild pollinators, compromising their ability to provide pollination services to wild and cultivated plants. Landscape genomics offers powerful tools to assess the influence of landscape modifications on genetic diversity and functional connectivity, and to identify adaptations to local environmental conditions that could facilitate future bee survival. Here, we assessed range-wide patterns of genetic structure, genetic diversity, gene flow, and local adaptation in the stingless bee Melipona subnitida, a tropical pollinator of key biological and economic importance inhabiting one of the driest and hottest regions of South America. Our results reveal four genetic clusters across the species' full distribution range. All populations were found to be under a mutation-drift equilibrium, and genetic diversity was not influenced by the amount of reminiscent natural habitats. However, genetic relatedness was spatially autocorrelated and isolation by landscape resistance explained range-wide relatedness patterns better than isolation by geographic distance, contradicting earlier findings for stingless bees. Specifically, gene flow was enhanced by increased thermal stability, higher forest cover, lower elevations, and less corrugated terrains. Finally, we detected genomic signatures of adaptation to temperature, precipitation, and forest cover, spatially distributed in latitudinal and altitudinal patterns. Taken together, our findings shed important light on the life history of M. subnitida and highlight the role of regions with large thermal fluctuations, deforested areas, and mountain ranges as dispersal barriers. Conservation actions such as restricting long-distance colony transportation, preserving local adaptations, and improving the connectivity between highlands and lowlands are likely to assure future pollination services.
1.Inst Tecnol Vale, Belem, Para, Brazil 2.Univ Sao Paulo, Dept Ecol, Sao Paulo, Brazil 3.Univ Fed Rural Semi Arido, Dept Biociencias, Mossoro, Brazil 4.Univ Fed Para, Inst Ciencias Biol, Belem, Para, Brazil 5.Univ Texas Austin, Dept Integrat Biol, Austin, TX 78712 USA 6.Univ Sao Paulo, Dept Genet & Biol Evolut, Sao Paulo, Brazil 7.Univ Sao Paulo, Fac Med Ribeirao Preto, Dept Genet, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil 8.Univ Fed Rural Pernambuco, Unidade Acad Serra Talhada, Serra Talhada, Brazil 9.Univ Estadual Feira de Santana, Ctr Agroecol Rio Seco, Amelia Rodrigues, Brazil 10.Univ Fed Ceara, Dept Zootecnia, Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil 11.Univ Fed Paraiba, Dept Sistemat & Ecol, Joao Pessoa, Paraiba, Brazil 12.Univ Sao Paulo, Escola Politecn, Sao Paulo, Brazil 13.Embrapa Meio Norte, Teresina, Brazil
Recommended Citation:
Jaffe, Rodolfo,Veiga, Jamille C.,Pope, Nathaniel S.,et al. Landscape genomics to the rescue of a tropical bee threatened by habitat loss and climate change[J]. EVOLUTIONARY APPLICATIONS,2019-01-01,12(6):1164-1177