Invasion of the dwarf honeybee Apis florea into the near East

Robin F.A. Moritz, Nizar Haddad, Ahmed Bataieneh, Benny Shalmon, Abraham Hefetz

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The dwarf honeybee, Apis florae, is an open nesting honeybee typical to Southern Asia. In the past decades it has been accidentally introduced by man to East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula where the species established sustainable and expanding populations. Recently it has also been introduced to Aqaba and Eilat, where it has also established expanding populations. We here study the genetic structure of this invasive population with nine microsatellite DNA markers to reconstruct the invasion history. The population shows indications of an extreme bottleneck suggesting that it established itself very recently and may have originated from a single introduced colony only. The impact of the species for both apiculture and conservation of biodiversity is discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1093-1099
Number of pages7
JournalBiological Invasions
Volume12
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 2010

Keywords

  • Apis florea
  • Apis mellifera
  • Aqaba
  • Eilat
  • Invasion
  • Microsatellite DNA

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