Geographical and population diversity of African honeybees, Apismellifera L. (Hymenoptera: Apidae): A review

Abstract

This review was prepared to summarize the information on geographic and genetic diversity of Apismellifera L. of African honeybees and the progresses made through time and applications of various advanced tools in their taxonomy at subspecies level. African honeybees have developed distinct morphology, behavior and physiology as they evolved in tropical favorable climate. The variations among the African honeybee populations have helped to produce geographic subspecies based on the morphological characteristics. However, the introduction of molecular taxonomic tools has come up with discrepancies in the number of subspecies and lineages, and subspecies composition of evolutionary lineages in Africa and other parts of the world. It has also brought up controversies in the evolutionary history of A. mellifera reporting different location as the center of origin of the species at different times: Asia, Africa and Europe. It is not only the tools that are used, but also the genetic variations within subspecies, within colonies in an apiary site and within individuals of the same colony temporally are the factors for continually appearing discrepancies. Natural hybridization between populations of adjacent subspecies along the geographic transition zones and introgression of genes through introduction of colonies that is mainly driven by human demand for desirable traits of honeybees have been among the challenges for discrimination of honeybee subspecies. Therefore, in future genetic diversity and taxonomic investigations, considering these natural variations at subspecies level and developing standardized and integrated procedures from sampling to analysis methods would help to produce generally recognized data base that is critically important to resolve the problem of inconsistencies in taxonomy and nomenclature of honeybee subspecies of Arica and elsewhere.