This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Research Interests:
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Honey bee decline is currently one of the world's most serious environmental issues, and scientists, governments, and producers have generated interest in understanding its causes and consequences in honey production and food supply.... more
Honey bee decline is currently one of the world's most serious environmental issues, and scientists, governments, and producers have generated interest in understanding its causes and consequences in honey production and food supply. Mexico is one of the world’s top honey producers, however, the honey bee population's status has not been documented to date. Based on 32 years of data from beekeeping, we make a country-level assessment of honey bee colony trends in Mexico. We use generalized additive mixed models to measure the associations between the percent change in honey bee hives and the percent change in honey yield per hive in relation to land-use, climate, and socioeconomic conditions. Despite the fact that the average annual yield per hive increased from 1980 to 2012, we detected a significant decline in the percent change in the number of honey bee hives across the time period studied. We also found a relationship between climatic conditions and agricultural land us...
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Honey bee decline is currently one of the world's most serious environmental issues, and scientists, governments, and producers have generated interest in understanding its causes and consequences in honey production and food supply.... more
Honey bee decline is currently one of the world's most serious environmental issues, and scientists, governments, and producers have generated interest in understanding its causes and consequences in honey production and food supply. Mexico is one of the world's top honey producers, however, the honey bee population's status has not been documented to date. Based on 32 years of data from beekeeping, we make a country-level assessment of honey bee colony trends in Mexico. We use generalized additive mixed models to measure the associations between the percent change in honey bee hives and the percent change in honey yield per hive in relation to land-use, climate, and socioeconomic conditions. Despite the fact that the average annual yield per hive increased from 1980 to 2012, we detected a significant decline in the percent change in the number of honey bee hives across the time period studied. We also found a relationship between climatic conditions and agricultural land use, with agriculture increases and high temperatures producing a decrease in the percent change in honey yield. We found a relationship between a reduction in the temperature range (the difference between maximum and minimum temperatures) and a decrease in the percent change in the number of hives, while socioeconomic factors related to poverty levels have an impact on the number of hives and honey yields. Although long-term declines in hive numbers are not correlated with poverty levels, socioeconomic factors in states with high and medium poverty levels limit the increase in honey yield per hive. These results provide evidence that land-use changes, unfavorable climatic conditions, political, and socioeconomic factors are partially responsible for the reductions in the percent change in honey bee hives in Mexico.
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Martha Lopezaraiza-Mikel, Mauricio Quesada, Mariana AlvarezAnorve, Luis Avila-Cabadilla, Silvana Marten-Rodriguez, Julio Calvo-Alvarado, Mario Marcos do Espirito-Santo, Geraldo Wilson Fernandes, Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa, Maria de Jesus... more
Martha Lopezaraiza-Mikel, Mauricio Quesada, Mariana AlvarezAnorve, Luis Avila-Cabadilla, Silvana Marten-Rodriguez, Julio Calvo-Alvarado, Mario Marcos do Espirito-Santo, Geraldo Wilson Fernandes, Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa, Maria de Jesus AguilarAguilar, Francisco Balvino-Olvera, Diego Brandao, Jose Miguel Contreras-Sanchez, Joselândio Correa-Santos, Jacob Cristobal-Perez, Paola Fernandez, Branco Hilje, Claudia Jacobi, Flavia FonsecaPezzini, Fernando Rosas, Victor Rosas-Guerrero, Gumersindo Sanchez-Montoya, Roberto Sayago, and Arely Vazquez-Ramirez
Crop wild relatives represent an important agronomic resource for crop improvement and biodiversity conservation. The wild squash Cucurbita argyrosperma subsp. sororia. (Cucurbitaceae) has been considered the wild ancestor of cultivated... more
Crop wild relatives represent an important agronomic resource for crop improvement and biodiversity conservation. The wild squash Cucurbita argyrosperma subsp. sororia. (Cucurbitaceae) has been considered the wild ancestor of cultivated forms of C. argyrosperma. In order to characterise the geographic patterns of genetic variation in this wild cucurbit and to identify priority areas for conservation, we analysed the genetic diversity and structure of natural populations along the Mexican Pacific coast. By using 14 polymorphic microsatellites, we genotyped 378 individuals sampled from 61 locations. Standard population genetics analyses and group testing were conducted on the genotypes with the aid of principal coordinate analysis and Bayesian analysis. Overall, we found an average of 12.3 alleles per locus and an expected heterozygosity of 0.756. We found greater genetic diversity in southern populations. The fixation index was 0.113, suggesting a mixed mating system. The Mantel test...
Research Interests:
Crop wild relatives represent an important agronomic resource for crop improvement and biodiversity conservation. The wild squash Cucurbita argyrosperma subsp. sororia. (Cucurbitaceae) has been considered the wild ancestor of cultivated... more
Crop wild relatives represent an important agronomic resource for crop improvement and biodiversity conservation. The wild squash Cucurbita argyrosperma subsp. sororia. (Cucurbitaceae) has been considered the wild ancestor of cultivated forms of C. argyrosperma. In order to characterise the geographic patterns of genetic variation in this wild cucurbit and to identify priority areas for conservation, we analysed the genetic diversity and structure of natural populations along the Mexican Pacific coast. By using 14 polymorphic microsatellites, we genotyped 378 individuals sampled from 61 locations. Standard population genetics analyses and group testing were conducted on the genotypes with the aid of principal coordinate analysis and Bayesian analysis. Overall, we found an average of 12.3 alleles per locus and an expected heterozygosity of 0.756. We found greater genetic diversity in southern populations. The fixation index was 0.113, suggesting a mixed mating system. The Mantel test revealed a minor distance effect on genetic differentiation between individuals (r = 0.321). Finally, we found three main groups of populations arranged in a mostly latitudinal pattern, from Sinaloa (northwest) to Oaxaca–Guerrero (southeast). The greater genetic diversity and heterogeneity among southern populations (Guerrero–Oaxaca), suggests that this region is an important centre of diversity of this wild squash with important implications for conservation.