Abstract
Within the western honey bee (Apis mellifera), there are more than 20 recognised subspecies. It is well known that these subspecies differ in their wing venation patterns. However, there is a demand for efficient tools to identify honey bee subspecies, ecotypes, populations or hybrids. The aim of this study was to develop a fast and easy identification method based on analysing forewing vein patterns of honey bees by geometric morphometrics. Reference samples for the subspecies were obtained from the Morphometric Bee Data Bank in Oberursel, Germany. These contained 187 honey bee colonies allocated into 25 subspecies from four evolutionary lineages. The identification of evolutionary lineages of honey bees based on forewing venations proved to be highly reliable, which confirms earlier studies. The accuracy of honey bee subspecies identification was less consistent and ranged from 100 to 50% and was particularly low in African honey bees. The obtained identification data were exported to the IdentiFly computer software, which is freely available.
Highlights
The western honey bee (Apis mellifera ) has a wide geographical range, which covers almost the entire area of Europe, Africa, the Near East and central Asia (Ruttner 1988; Sheppard and Meixner 2003; Chen et al 2016)
Discrimination of honey bee subspecies can be important in zoogeographic studies
In some parts of Asia and Africa, the distribution ranges of honey bee subspecies have not been fully explored (Meixner et al 2013)
Summary
The western honey bee (Apis mellifera ) has a wide geographical range, which covers almost the entire area of Europe, Africa, the Near East and central Asia (Ruttner 1988; Sheppard and Meixner 2003; Chen et al 2016). Within this range, there are markedly different climates and environments. There are markedly different climates and environments Such diverse conditions and the history of spread and isolation of subpopulations resulted in a notable variation of morphological traits. Discrimination of the subspecies is important for the conservation of the honey bee biodiversity. Precise zoogeographical maps based on standardised identification methods would make an important contribution to future conservation programs
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