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HEREDITAS ›› 2012, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (8): 1057-1063.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1005.2012.01057

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Phylogenetic relationships of honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apinae) in-ferred from mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences

CAO Lian-Fei1, NIU De-Fang1, HE Shao-Yu2, KUANG Hai-Ou2, HU Fu-Liang1   

  1. 1. College of Animal Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China 2. Eastern Bee Research Institute, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming 650201, China
  • Received:2012-01-06 Revised:2012-02-24 Online:2012-08-20 Published:2012-08-25

Abstract: The sequences of mitochondrial ND2, CO2, and 16S rRNA genes and nuclear ITPR gene were obtained from 22 samples of 5 Apis species from China. The characteristics of the sequences and the pairwise distances among species were analyzed. Phylogenetic trees were reconstructed for Apis species using maximum parsimony, neighbor-joining and maximum likelihood methods together with the sequences of the other 4 Apis species downloaded from GenBank. Results supported that Apis species were divided into three major clusters: dwarf bees (A. florea and A. andreniformis), giant bees (A. dorsata and A. laboriosa), and cavity-nesting bees (A. mellifera, A. cerana, A. koschevnikovi, A. nigrocinta, and A. nuluensis). The dwarf honey bees were confirmed as basal lineage. Our study also revealed a high level of genetic divergence between A. dorsata from Hainan Island and China mainland.

Key words: Apis, ND2, CO2, 16S rRNA, ITPR, molecular phylogeny