Comparison of pooled semen insemination and single colony insemination as sustainable honeybee breeding strategies.

ABSTRACT: Instrumental insemination of honeybees allows for two opposing breeding strategies. In single colony insemination (SCI), all drones to inseminate a queen are taken from one colony. In pooled semen insemination (PSI), sperm of many genetically diverse drones is mixed and queens are fertilized from the resulting drone pool. While SCI allows for maximum pedigree control, proponents of PSI claim to reduce inbreeding and maintain genetic variance. Using stochastic simulation studies, we compared genetic progress and inbreeding rates in small honeybee populations under SCI and PSI. Four different selection criteria were covered: estimated breeding values (EBV), phenotypes, true breeding values (TBV) and random selection. Under EBV-based truncation selection, SCI yielded 9.0% to 44.4% higher gene

SUBMITTER: Du M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10827426 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature