Abstract
In Morocco, there are two well-recognised honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) subspecies: A. m. intermissa in the north and A. m. sahariensis in the south-east. The latter subspecies is found in the arid and semiarid climates of the Sahara Desert. In this study, we used honey bees from four areas of south-eastern Morocco which are, to some degree, isolated by arid zones. We analysed the shape and size of the forewings, using the method of geometric morphometrics. The bees from the four areas of south-eastern Morocco differed significantly in terms of wing shape. Moreover, bees from traditional hives were smaller than those from modern hives. The bees from south-eastern Morocco were clearly different from the reference samples obtained from the Morphometric Bee Data Bank in Oberursel, Germany, representing most of the global variation in honey bees. Surprisingly, the bees were also different from A. m. sahariensis, which should occur in the study area, according to earlier studies. This difference could have been caused by introgression with non-native subspecies imported by beekeepers. The distinct honey bees from south-eastern Morocco deserve to be protected. We provide a method for identifying them, which can help protect them.
Highlights
The subspecies of the western honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) are naturally distributed throughout Africa, Europe and western Asia [1]
The study area covers the south-eastern slope of the High Atlas Mountains, which is within the natural range of A. m. sahariensis (Table S1 and Figure 1)
The wing shape of bees from south-eastern Morocco differed markedly from the reference samples of A. m. sahariensis, which according to earlier research [1,5] should be found in the study area
Summary
The subspecies of the western honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) are naturally distributed throughout Africa, Europe and western Asia [1]. Based on traditional morphometric tools, Ruttner [1] verified 24 subspecies, which he grouped into four lineages: the African lineage (A), the western Mediterranean lineage (M), the northern Mediterranean lineage (C) and the eastern lineage (O). We recognize approximately 31 subspecies, 11 of which are located only in Africa [2]. According to Ruttner [1], there are two clearly distinguishable subspecies in Morocco: Apis mellifera intermissa (Maa, 1953) and Apis mellifera sahariensis (Baldensperger, 1932), while the status of a third subspecies–Apis mellifera major (Ruttner, 1976)–is unclear [1,3]. These subspecies were considered to belong to the western Mediterranean lineage [1]. Mitochondrial DNA markers later confirmed that they belong to the African lineage [4]
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