That's only part of the story. Br. Adam's famous "all the Amm are dead"
he never said that, I've only heard "Br. Adam said.." from members of Amm groups
claims have been refuted again & again,
Yes that's right, the documentary evidence that you would cite to prove the Amm were never extinct is... drum roll... Br. Adam's journal/breeding records (except from 1916/17 to early 1918/19), he also makes mention of bees being at the Abbey as early as the 1890's.
so some of the original dark bees in Britain & Ireland definitely did survive.
ahh, no, there's no evidence for that Amm haplotype surviving.
As you point out, large numbers of Amm were imported from NL and from FR and these have left their mark in the genome of the bees here. If you look at Fig. 4 in
Jack Hassett's paper you'll clearly see that the Irish population sits separate from the bees descended from the imports,
yeees.... have a closer look at that Fig.4 were are the bees from "NL" .... it's the only 1 (hint) that's not listed.... let me copy and paste a paragraph for you,
"Whether the same levels of Dutch haplotypes will be present in a wider sample of non-managed colonies remains to be seen. But certainly, amongst the beekeepers in the NIHBS these are the predominant type of
A. m. mellifera here."
and in Fig. 3C you can see that there are peaks unique to Irish bees.
This ones, complicated,
1st - Is this level of mutation high
relatively speaking... unless you have other DNA studies comparing samples taken say near 100 years ago and compared to their descendants today, we don't know what level of mutations (through genetic drift) should be expected: There was a later study conducted throughout northern Europe that suggests this observation is not high.
2nd - Is this level of mutation (instead of being from genetic drift but) from hybridising with an original indigenous Amm bee... Dr. Hassett has since released additional genetic info. collected during the 2017 study in which he presents the possible discovery of the "Native Native bee" his wording not mine, descended from a lineage over 1000 years old from Ireland, as opposed to the 'continental native bees' (from memory he used a phrase similar to that)) throughout Ireland.
That paper actually also debunks the myth about Irish bees being inbred.
Never heard that one, but I have heard people express concern about a lack of genetic diversity... something about to few queens being used to rear virgins from.
