Intrabreed Diversity and Relationships between Races of Honey Bee <i>Apis mellifera carpathica</i> and <i>Apis mellifera caucasica</i>

Abstract

Based on the analysis of 94 sequences of the mtDNA CO1 gene, the intrabreed diversity and evolutionary relationships of bees from Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Poland were studied. We revealed two main haplotypes corresponding to the races A. m. carpathica and A. m. caucasica, common in the studied regions. However, in Armenia bees of the Caucasian race predominate, and in Poland – Carpathian. A. m. caucasica has higher haplotype diversity: one of its haplotypes is formed by samples of bees from the Crimean mountain breed, possibly an independent race A. m. taurica. There are 2 clusters on the phylogenetic tree: one cluster includes A. m. mellifera and A. m. iberica (evolutionary line M), the other (line C) ‒ A. m. ligustica, A. m. carpathica, A. m. caucasica. Haplotypes of A. m. caucasica have more substitutions per site, indicating their earlier origin compared to A. m. ligustica and A. m. carpathica. According to the time of divergence of A. mellifera and A. cerana at 6 Ma, the divergence of all races of line C is estimated from 1.3 to 0.6 Ma; races A. m. caucasica 0.35–0.25 million, A. m. carpathica – 0.2–0.04 million. When using universal primers with optimization of amplification conditions for the mtDNA CO1 gene region, a nonsynonymous G/A SNP was detected in position 4 (680 bp) which can be used to identify A. m. carpathica from A. m. ligustica.