Clinal morphometric variation in Africanized honey bees under racial admixture hypothesis

Abstract

SUMMARYGeographical variation in Africanized honey bees (Apis mellifera) in Brazil usually has been attributed to distinct levels of racial admixture between African and European honey bees. In this paper, we evaluated if morphometric variation in southern and north-eastern Brazil is within the limits established by the racial admixture model based on isozymes, proposed by Lobo et al. (1989) and Lobo and Krieger (1992). Most of the characters showed small deviations from expected in the same direction (larger bees) for both regions, and this may be attributed to scaling effects or to an uncertainty about average values in the introduced A. m. scutellata population. Morphometric data can then be considered within the limits established by the racial admixture model, supporting the hypotheses previously proposed to explain its geographic patterns.