Wing geometric morphometrics and microsatellite analysis provide similar discrimination of honey bee subspecies

Abstract

-Identification of honey bee (Apis mellifera) subspecies is important for their protection. It is also used by queen breeders to maintain some breeding lines. In this study, we compared three methods of subspecies identification based on the following: 17 microsatellite loci, COI-COII mitotypes and geometric morphometrics of forewing venation. The methods were used to classify colonies and workers from a mixed population of A. m. mellifera and A. m. carnica. There was highly significant correlation between results obtained using the three methods. More than three quarters of colonies were classified to the same subspecies by all three methods. The agreement was highest between microsatellites and morphometrics. More than 90 % of colonies were classified to the same subspecies by the two methods. There was also relatively high agreement (75 %) between microsatellites and morphometrics when workers were classified as pure subspecies or hybrids. In particular, one pure subspecies was never misclassified as other pure subspecies. The results presented here show that morphometrics can be used for detection of hybrids between A. m. mellifera and A. m. carnica. geometric morphometrics / subspecies discrimination / microsatellites / mtDNA / Bayesian clustering / Apis mellifera / phenotype-genotype correlation

Geometric morphometric discrimination of the three African honeybee subspecies Apis mellifera intermissa, A. m. sahariensis and A. m. capensis (Hymenoptera, Apidae): Fore wing and hind wing landmark configurations

“…Kandemir et al (2011) also reported that a landmark analysis of wing shape could be used as a reliable tool to discriminate among honeybee subspecies. Furthermore, Oleksa and Tofilski (2015) reported that in some studies, morphometrics proved to be even more effective in the identification of subspecies than molecular markers, and that the morphological characters were also more suitable for distinguishing ecotypes within A. mellifera subspecies. In contrast, Dolati et al (2013) reported that for A. m. meda colonies of many Iranian populations only 68.2% were correctly classified by using the FW shape and 43% by using the HW shape.…”

“…All the LM correspond to type I LM sensu Bookstein (1991) except for LM15 on FW (maximum curvature of veins, a type III LM). The same set or a slightly reduced set of LMs has been employed in most GPA studies of honeybees (Baylac et al 2008, Miguel et al 2011, Barour et al 2011Kandemir et al 2011, Oleksa andTofilski 2015), but other authors have also used HW shape data from the A. m. intermissa and A. m. sahariensis populations (Barour, 2012) and from A. mellifera subspecies (Dolati et al 2013). …”

Variation of fore wing shape in Melipona mandacaia Smith, 1863 (Hymenoptera, Meliponini) along its geographic range

“…In this sense, studies of geometric morphometrics are useful to the identification of variation in populations and species of bees (Oleksa and Tofilski 2015) that are essential to conservation plans.…”

Identification of cryptic species and morphotypes in male Euglossa: morphometric analysis of forewings (Hymenoptera: Euglossini)

“…In bees, geometric morphometrics of the forewing has been capable of discriminating operational taxonomic units (Aytekin et al 2007;Francoy et al 2008Francoy et al , 2011Kandemir et al 2011). Importantly, such identification seems to conform to those based on molecular markers (Francoy et al 2012;Oleksa and Tofilski 2015). However, in bees, the use of geometric morphometrics for the discrimination of cryptic species has remained uninvestigated, in spite of its promising use in other insect taxa Pizzo et al 2006;GurgelGoncalves et al 2011;Muñoz-Muñoz et al 2011;Mitrovski-Bogdanović et al 2013).…”