Spatial analysis of morphological variation in African honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) on a continental scale

Population differentiation of African honeybees has been analysed in a spat ial context encompassing the continent's wide geographical range and enviro nmental heterogeneity, based on 10 morphological characters measured from 2 68 local populations. While autocorrelation indicates a continuous large-sc ale decrease in similarity in general, clustering of single character corre lograms suggests four distinct groups of profiles. This pattern, further su pported by mapping factor scores, canonical trend surface analysis axes sco res, suggests a variety of microevolutionary mechanisms acting at distinct scales in time and space in different groups of characters. Association wit h largescale differences in vegetation, climate and traditional subspecific classification has been analysed by analysis of variance (ANOVA). The most important aspect is that the results support the hypothesis that tradition al subspecies, at least as defined by these characters, seem to represent i ntegrated evolutionary units well adapted to their local conditions.