Introgression of greenhouse bumblebees into the wild populations.
Bumblebees have been recognized for long as both ecologically and economically important pollinators. Commercial bumblebee rearing is an increasing enterprise, successfully competing with apiculture in niche markets focusing on pollination services.
In this project we focused on the assay if there is any introgression of commercial greenhouse bumblebees into the wild populations. We sampled bumblebees from greenhouses and compared this with individuals sampled in the direct vicinity of the greenhouses. Moreover more distant wild populations were sampled.
To determine the allelic constitution and the allele frequencies we use microsatellites. These values we used to calculate the colony number, the genetic distance (Fst-value) and to find evidences for a linkage disequilibrium. If there is a linkage disequilibrium then it will be possible that there is introgression.
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