Genetic diversity of the honeybee in Africa: microsatellite and mitochondrial data

A total of 738 colonies from 64 localities along the African continent have been analysed using the DraI RFLP of the COI-COII mitochondrial region. Mi tochondrial DNA of African honeybees appears to be composed of three highly divergent lineages. The African lineage previously reported (named A) is p resent in almost all the localities except those from north-eastern Africa. In this area, two newly described lineages (called O and Y), putatively or iginating from the Near East, are observed in high proportion. This suggest s an important differentiation of Ethiopian and Egyptian honeybees from tho se of other African areas. The A lineage is also present in high proportion in populations from the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily. Furthermore, eight p opulations from Morocco, Guinea, Malawi and South Africa have been assayed with six microsatellite loci and compared to a set of eight additional popu lations from Europe and the Middle East. The African populations display hi gher genetic variability than European populations at all microsatellite lo ci studied thus far. This suggests that African populations have larger eff ective sizes than European ones. According to their microsatellite allele f requencies, the eight African populations cluster together, but are divided in two subgroups. These are the populations from Morocco and those from th e other African countries. The populations from southern Europe show very l ow levels of 'Africanization' at nuclear microsatellite loci. Because nucle ar and mitochondrial DNA often display discordant patterns of differentiati on in the honeybee, the use of both kinds of markers is preferable when ass essing the phylogeography of Apis mellifera and to determine the taxonomic status of the subspecies.