A century of genome diversity in UK insect pollinators

Pollinating insects are keystone species in almost all terrestrial ecosystems, playing a vital role in the reproductive success of both wild and cultivated flowering plants. However, pollinator populations have been declining in recent years due to various factors, including habitat loss, pesticide use, and disease. A better understanding of genome diversity in pollinator species, and how it has changed over time, will provide valuable insights into the factors driving these declines and inform future conservation efforts, in turn will benefiting both natural and farmed plant populations. To understand how pollinator genomes are changing, and whether there is a shared history of population change across different pollinating insect taxa, we need to a baseline to compare against. Fortunately, museum collections offer a unique opportunity to access DNA from historical pollinator specimens, which can be used to establish that baseline, and reveal changes in genome diversity.
Here we will analyse DNA from modern and museum collections of pollinator insect species to understand the impacts of ongoing pollinator decline at the genome level. We will examine changes in diversity across species which are in decline, and others which are stable or expanding, to measure the impact of change in population size, structure and selection pressure.
Our specific objectives are to:
O1. Determine whether there are broad patterns of population structure in our target species, and whether those patterns have been stable over the past 100 years. This is important for determining management and conservation strategy for the species, and in any future effort to predict responses to land-use and climate change.
O2. Determine the degree of genome diversity in our target species, and whether it has been stable over the past 100 years. These metrics are critical for establishing whether reduction in population size have led to inbreeding and reduced fitness or whether there is evidence for...