Thrice Out of Africa: Ancient and Recent Expansions of the Honey Bee, Apis mellifera

Abstract

We characterized Apis mellifera in both native and introduced ranges using 1136 single-nucleotide polymorphisms genotyped in 341 individuals. Our results indicate that A. mellifera originated in Africa and expanded into Eurasia at least twice, resulting in populations in eastern and western Europe that are geographically close but genetically distant. A third expansion in the New World has involved the near-replacement of previously introduced "European" honey bees by descendants of more recently introduced A. m. scutellata ("African" or "killer" bees). Our analyses of spatial transects and temporal series in the New World revealed differential replacement of alleles derived from eastern versus western Europe, with admixture evident in all individuals.

Geometric morphometrics of the wing as a tool for assigning genetic lineages and geographic origin to Melipona beecheii (Hymenoptera: Meliponini)

“…A similar situation is found in A. mellifera populations along its original geographical distribution, which covers almost all of Africa and Europe and part of Asia (Ruttner 1988). This bee is classified in more than 24 subspecies and the existence of different evolutionary branches is confirmed by several markers, including morphometrics (Ruttner 1988), microsatellites (Estoup et al 1995), mitochondrial DNA (Franck et al 2000) and SNPs in the nuclear DNA (Whitfield et al 2006).…”

Impact of Varroa destructor on honeybee (Apis mellifera scutellata) colony development in South Africa

“…The so called Africanised honeybees that resulted from this hybridisation spread to most parts of South, Central and North America (Sheppard et al 1991;Winston 1992;Visscher et al 1997;Page 1998;Sheppard and Smith 2000). A significant amount of research has been done on the genetic and behavioural composition of the invasive Africanised honeybee, with most of the research indicating that a high percentage of African characters are conserved within these populations (Schneider et al 2004;Moritz et al 2005;Whitfield et al 2006;Kraus et al 2007). In Brazil, Varroa mite infestation rates of Africanised honeybee colonies have remained very low over the years, from when the mite was first observed in the late seventies up until recent times (Rosenkranz 1999), with no reports of large scale honeybee mortality (De Jong et al 1984;Camazine and Morse 1988;Carneiro et al 2007;Calderón et al 2010).…”

Microsatellite variability reveals beekeeping influences on Iberian honeybee populations

“…Data from SNPs led to postulate the African origin of A. mellifera and that there were at least two subsequent expansions into Eurasia-a western expansion into Europe (M) and one or more eastern expansion into Asia and Europe (O and C; Whitfield et al 2006). The intermediate values of microsatellite heterozygosity agree with the survival of Iberian populations during the last glaciation event-which lately colonised Western Europe during present postglacial period-and the arrival of the hypothesised colonisation waves from North Africa (Garnery et al 1998b;Franck et al 1998;Miguel et al 2007; data presented here).…”