Genetic subpopulations ofVarroamites and theirApis ceranahosts in Thailand

Abstract

Thailand is the only place known where large populations of Mainland and Sundaland Apis cerana come into contact and where native strains of both Varroa destructor and V. jacobsoni occur. This provides a unique opportunity to investigate occurrence of Varroa species and mitochondrial lineages on different genetic lineages of A. cerana in a natural setting. We sampled Thai Varroa and A. cerana on a north to south transect, and identified mite and bee mtDNA haplotypes by RFLPs and COI sequence. Ranges of Mainland and Sundaland A. cerana meet at the Kra ecotone, between 10°34'N and 11°24'N. Varroa jacobsoni was found on both Sundaland and Mainland A. cerana; south of Kra ecotone (on Sundaland A. cerana) mites had the Malaysia haplotype, while north of Kra ecotone (on Mainland A. cerana) mites had the NorthThai1 or NorthThai2 haplotype. Varroa destructor was only found in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai Provinces (18°36'N, 98°48'E) at altitudes above 1000 m. We found no evidence of V. destructor with so-called Japan-Thailand haplotype on Thai A. cerana. Apis cerana / Varroa / coevolution / mitochondrial DNA / Thailand

Mitochondrial DNA diversity of ChineseApis cerana

“…• N (Warrit, 2002;Warrit et al, 2006); Japan samples are described in Smith and Hagen (1996); Korean samples in Smith et al (2000); Burma samples in Smith et al (2004); Indochina includes samples from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam (Smith et al, 2005) China1−5 were new. The new non-coding sequences are deposited in Genbank (http:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/, accession numbers DQ269024-DQ269028, respectively).…”

“…Both the "Mainland" and "Sundaland" A. cerana mitochondrial lineages occur in mainland Asia. The "Mainland" lineage is found over most of mainland Asia and in Japan (Smith and Hagen, 1996;Warrit et al, 2006).…”

“…A non-coding region of the Apis mitochondrial genome (Cornuet et al, 1991) has been used extensively in studies of honey bee biogeography and population biology (for example, Garnery et al, 1992Garnery et al, , 1995Garnery et al, , 1998Oldroyd et al, 1995;Moritz et al, 1994;Deowanish et al, 1996;Smith and Hagen, 1996;de la Rúa et al, 1998de la Rúa et al, , 2000Deowanish et al, 1998;Franck et al, 1998Franck et al, , 2000aFranck et al, ,b, 2001Sheppard et al, 1999;Sihanuntavong et al, 1999;Smith and Hagen, 1999;Palmer et al, 2000;Smith et al, 2000Smith et al, , 2003Smith et al, , 2004Smith et al, , 2005Warrit et al, 2006, and many more). Few data of this nature are available for Chinese A. cerana.…”

Mitochondrial DNA variations in Korean Apis cerana (Hymenoptera: Apidae) and development of another potential marker

“…The genetic diversity of the Korean samples was compared to that of samples from other countries reported previously (Smith et al 2000(Smith et al , 2004Warrit et al 2006;Tan et al 2007;Takahashi et al 2007). The frequency and distribution of the NC2 haplotypes from previous studies are presented in Online Resource 1.…”

“…frequency and belongs to the Mainland Asian group when incorporated into the worldwide dataset (Smith and Hagen 1996;Smith et al 2000Smith et al , 2004Warrit et al 2006;Takahashi et al 2007). …”