Abstract
Mitochondrial DNA sequence variation can be used to infer honey bee evolutionary relationships. In this study, DNA sequence diversity in the ND5 region of the mitochondrial genome was investigated in 93 samples of Apis mellifera from 15 different populations in Turkey. Five novel haplotypes were revealed for the ND5 gene segment of Turkish honeybees. The number of variable sites found was 6 for this region while 2 were parsimony informative sites. The average pairwise genetic distances were 0.3% for ND5 gene. In this study, the NJ tree of ND5 gene segment were constructed with the published sequences of Apis mellifera haplotypes. This study expands the knowledge about the mitochondrial ND5 region in Apis mellifera and it is also the first comprehensive sequencing analysis of ND5 region in Turkish honeybees.
Highlights
The honey bee, Apis mellifera L., occurs naturally in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Ruttner 1988)
The Near Eastern subspecies, Anatolian (A. m. anatoliaca), Caucasian (A. m. caucasica) and Iranian (A. m. meda), had been grouped within the O branch (Ruttner 1988; Kauhausen-Keller et al 1997), mtDNA analysis showed that they belonged to the C lineage (Smith et al 1997; Palmer et al 2000; Franck et al 2000, 2001; Kandemir et al 2006; Özdil et al 2009a, 2009b; Bouga et al 2011)
Ruttner’s (1988) morphometric analyses concluded that A. m. anatoliaca, A. m. caucasica and A. m. meda exist in Turkey
Summary
The honey bee, Apis mellifera L., occurs naturally in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Ruttner 1988). From morphometric and molecular studies, the 29 subspecies of the honey bee, Apis mellifera L., are grouped into five evolutionary lineages: M from northern and western Europe and northern Africa, A from southern and central Africa, C from the northern Mediterranean region and eastern Europe, O from the eastern Mediterranean and the Near and Middle East region, and Y from the east African country of Ethiopia (Ruttner 1988; Hall and Smith 1991; Garnery et al 1992; Arias and Sheppard 1996; Kauhausen-Keller et al 1997; Franck et al 2000, 2001). Caucasica is found in the northeastern part of Turkey and A. m. The mitochondrial studies of Turkish honeybees had shown that A. m. carnica is found in the European part of Turkey called Thrace (Palmer et al 2000) and A. m. syriaca is found in the south part of the country near the Hatay region (Kandemir et al 2006)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
