Abstract
Summary — An electrophoretic survey of 18 putative enzyme loci was conducted on Sri Lankan Apis cerana, A. dorsata and A. florea, using techniques of sequential electrophoresis. Included for analysis were published data from European A. mellifera. Seven enzymes exhibited polymorphism and for some species are reported here for the first time. Seven enzymes showed fixed allozymic differences among all four species and three were fixed for the same allozyme in all four species. Allozyme data were analyzed using UPGMA clustering, a Distance Wagner procedure and a simple cladistic method. The mean genetic distance (Nei’s D = 1.30) indicates that considerable allozyme differences have accumulated among the species. Due to the relatively large genetic distance between A. cerana and A. mellifera (D = 1.10), electrophoretic data do not support a divergence time for these species as recent as that suggested by morphological and behavioral evidence. The electrophoretic data do not resolve questions concerning the phylogeny of Apis, due largely to the number of fixed differences among the species. Electrophoresis does show promise for species identification and resolution of the A. dorsata dcomplexd and other issues in Apis, as even the entry of data from single colonies into the BIOSYS program provided unambiguous discrimination. The treatment of electrophoretic data with phylogenetic tree-building or clustering techniques has potential for subspecies identification in endemic A. mellifera.
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