Genetic diversity of the endemic honeybee: Apis mellifera unicolor (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Madagascar

Abstract

-Apis mellifera unicolor is a tropical honeybee endemic of Madagascar. Comprehensive knowledge about its mitochondrial and nuclear genetic diversity and structuration was our main purpose. Samples of worker bees were collected from 867 colonies in 76 sites in Madagascar and 1 reference population in South Africa. PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and sequencing were used to reveal variability in the COI-COII mtDNA region. Seventeen microsatellite loci were used for studying the nuclear diversity. Three PCR-RFLP profiles were observed, among which 99.4 % belonged to A1 haplotype, 0.2 % to a new A haplotype, and 0.4 % to A4 haplotype. In microsatellite analysis, moderate genetic diversity values were found for Madagascar, together with low mean number of alleles ranging from 2.47 to 3.88 compared to South Africa. Bayesian clustering assignment methods and principal component analysis (PCA) separated populations into two genetic clusters which matched with geographic areas. Several hypotheses are discussed regarding to the low genetic diversity of A. m. unicolor in its native range.Apis mellifera unicolor / microsatellite / African lineage / genetic diversity / mtDNA

Large-scale mitochondrial DNA analysis of native honey bee Apis mellifera populations reveals a new African subgroup private to the South West Indian Ocean islands

“…All the SWIO islands (except Rodrigues) shared a common and predominant African COI-COII haplotype A1_MAD3, already described in A. m. unicolor population from Madagascar [31]. In this study, A1_MAD3 was also described for the first time in Senegal and Malawi and it can be supposed that this particular sequence i) appeared by homoplasy in geographical distant populations from the African continent and Madagascar, or ii) was originally present in African populations that colonized Madagascar.…”

Assessing hygienic behavior of Apis mellifera unicolor (Hymenoptera: Apidae), the endemic honey bee from Madagascar

“…DNA sequences (N = 10) were identical to A1-Mad3 [Accession No. KF976994; Rasolofoarivao et al (2015)]. F ST values were 0.01 (R2/R3), 0.05 (R1/R2), and 0.11 (R1/R3), with P-values highly significant for each region pair across all loci.…”

“…Nuclear diversity was estimated from one individual per colony using 17 microsatellite loci (Solignac et al, 2003). DNA extraction and PCR amplifications were conducted as described in Rasolofoarivao et al (2015). Genetic differentiation among regions was quantified by calculating pairwise F ST values (Weir and Cockerham, 1984) implemented in Genetix 4.05 (Belkhir et al, 1996(Belkhir et al, -2004.…”

Genetic diversity of Varroa destructor parasitizing Apis mellifera unicolor in Madagascar

“…destructor was first reported in Madagascar in 2010 (OIE-Feb-2010;Rasolofoarivao et al 2013) and has been observed parasitizing Apis mellifera unicolor (Latreille 1804) the endemic honey bee (Ruttner 1988), of the African lineage (Franck et al 2001;Rasolofarivao et al 2015b). The impact of the parasite on A. m. unicolor was severe (Rasolofoarivao et al 2013(Rasolofoarivao et al , 2015a, despite its African genetic background.…”

“…Indeed, it was reported that populations of A lineages, and notably Apis mellifera scutellata , were able to better tolerate V. destructor infestation (Strauss et al 2015(Strauss et al , 2016Mortensen et al 2016). Nevertheless, the spread of the mite is still relatively limited to the High Lands and the east coast regions (Rasolofarivao et al 2015b). In this work, we examined the nuclear genetic diversity of V. destructor in Madagascar with microsatellite markers.…”