Estudio taxonómico de dos subespecies de Apis mellifera (A.m.mellifera y A. m. ligustica) en proceso de hibridación, mediante el empleo de técnicas numéricas

DE SANTIS, LUIS; BOLOGNESE, ALDO; CORNEJO, LUIS; CRISCI, JORGE V.; DÍAZ, NORMA B.; LANTERI, ANALIA A; VIDAL SARMIENTO DE REGALÍA, JULIA

REV. MUSEO DE LA PLATA, NS ZOOL.

Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, UNLP

Lugar: La Plata; Año: 1983 vol. 13 p. 45 - 63

A numerical taxonomic study was conducted on sixteen samples of workers from bees of the southeastern Buenos Aires province. All of them were composed by a mixture of two subspecies, Apis mellifera mellifera and Apis mellifera ligustica. Each of the sixteen samples was compared with one pure sample of each taxa, using 9 characters (8 quantitative and 1 qualitative), and applying cluster analysis and ordination by Principal Component Analysis (PCA).The results of both analyses are generally in agreement and suggest: a) individuals clearly belonging to one of the other subspecies are rare; b) 75% of the samples are composed by individuals that are closer to A. mellifera mellifera; c) the most important characters to distinguish both subspecies are: index of abdominal thinness; width of sternites VI, V and III, cubital index and color of the three first tergites; d) a lower degree of aggressive behavior is correlated with a higher value of the cubital index and the width of wings, and the lower value of the width of the abdominal sternites, and the length of the tergites and the hind legs.