Morphometric affinities and population structure of honey bees of the Balearic Islands (Spain)

Abstract

SUMMARYMorphometric analyses of the honey bees (Apis mellifera) of the Balearic Islands revealed two statistically separable morphoclusters: (1) Menorca and Mallorca and (2) Ibiza and Formentera. These morphoclusters are geographically juxtaposed between North African and Iberian morphoclusters. The Mahalanobis distances between centroids of the four morphoclusters demonstrate that the two Balearic morphoclusters have closer affinities to the North African bees, than to southern Iberian and lastly northern Iberian bees. The morphometric data closely complement that of mitochondrial DNA that also shows that Balearic bees derive from African lineage.