A fifth major genetic group among honeybees revealed in Syria

BMC Genetics

Lionel Garnery³  Walter Steven Sheppard²  Ali Alburaki¹  Sibyle Moulin⁴  Hélène Legout⁴  Bénédicte Bertrand⁴  Mohamed Alburaki⁵ 

[1] University of Damascus, Faculty of Agriculture, PO BOX: 30621, Damascus, Syria;Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pollman, WA 99164-6382, USA;Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin, Versailles, France;CNRS, Laboratoire Evolution, Génomes et Spéciation LEGS, Avenue de la Terrasse, 91189 Gif-sur-Yvette, France;Université Laval, Institut de Biologie Intégrative et des Systèmes (IBIS), Pavillon Charles-Eugène Marchand, 1030, Avenue de la Médecine, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada

关键词: Population genetics;    Conservation genetics;    Microsatellite;    Apis mellifera syriaca;   

Others  :  1086162
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2156-14-117

 received in 2013-07-13, accepted in 2013-11-29,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Background

Apiculture has been practiced in North Africa and the Middle-East from antiquity. Several thousand years of selective breeding have left a mosaic of Apis mellifera subspecies in the Middle-East, many uniquely adapted and survived to local environmental conditions. In this study we explore the genetic diversity of A. mellifera from Syria (n = 1258), Lebanon (n = 169) and Iraq (n = 35) based on 14 short tandem repeat (STR) loci in the context of reference populations from throughout the Old World (n = 732).

Results

Our data suggest that the Syrian honeybee Apis mellifera syriaca occurs in both Syrian and Lebanese territories, with no significant genetic variability between respective populations from Syria and Lebanon. All studied populations clustered within a new fifth independent nuclear cluster, congruent with an mtDNA Z haplotype identified in a previous study. Syrian honeybee populations are not associated with Oriental lineage O, except for sporadic introgression into some populations close to the Turkish and Iraqi borders. Southern Syrian and Lebanese populations demonstrated high levels of genetic diversity compared to the northern populations.

Conclusion

This study revealed the effects of foreign queen importations on Syrian bee populations, especially for the region of Tartus, where extensive introgression of A. m. anatolica and/or A. m. caucasica alleles were identified. The policy of creating genetic conservation centers for the Syrian subspecies should take into consideration the influence of the oriental lineage O from the northern Syrian border and the large population of genetically divergent indigenous honeybees located in southern Syria.

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Alburaki et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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