Southern limits of Africanized honey bees in Argentina inferred by mtDNA and wing geometric morphometric analyses

PORRINI, L.P.; QUINTANA, S.; BRASESCO, C.; PORRINI, M.P.; GARRIDO P, M.; EGUARAS M, J.; FERNANDEZ IRIARTE, PEDRO J.

JOURNAL OF APICULTURAL RESEARCH

INT BEE RESEARCH ASSOC

Año: 2019

0021-8839

African honey bee subspecies Apis mellifera scutellata began to spread in theAmerican continent from southern Brazil in 1956. The process of Africanizationinvolved both maternal and paternal bidirectional gene flow between European andAfricanized honey bees. In Argentina, Africanized honey bees dominate in thenorthern semitropical regions and a hybrid area is defined between (ca. 32-34 degreeslatitude). Although previous analysis have been carried out in Buenos Aires province,no analysis has been made south of this latitude.. We used mitochondrial DNA(mtDNA) assays and wing geometric morphometrics to determine the prevalence ofAfricanized honey bees in managed populations. African mitotype origin andsubspecies identity, were determined at three regions from Argentina. In our study, weanalyzed 480 samples by wing morphometry and 157 by cytochrome-b assays,collected during 2013-2016. Our results show that North of 35°N latitude, honey beeswith African mitotype were quite common (88,64%) finding high similarity with A. m.scutellata. South of that latitude, in temperate regions, we found African mitotype inonly 18 of 133 colonies analyzed and a mixture of both European (A.m.ligustica,A.m.cárnica, A.m.mellifera) and African subspecies, most likely derived from NorthAfrican honey bee (A.m.intermissa). Our results confirmed the existence of Africanizedhoney bee populations with a gradual cline from north to south, as a result from recentA. m. scutellata-derived bee expansion. Beyond the transition area between the 30°-35° S parallels bees carrying the European mitotype were fairly common.