Morphometric Genetics Analysis Of Apis Cerana Populations In The Sichuan,Yunnan And Guizhou Province

Sichuan,Yunnan and Guizhou located in the southwest of China.Three provinces had diversified habitat,with an average altitude of about 3000 m of the western Sichuan plateau;with abundant rainfall,covered by a wide variety of vegetation of basin and typical developed Karst landform of the Yunnan-Guizhou plateau.We explored the relationship between ecological environments and population differentiation by analyzing 1980 Chinese honey bees from 33 collection sites in Sichuan,Yunnan and Guizhou province.Through one-way analysis of variance,step-wise discriminant analysis and cluster analysis,eight populations were found in Sichuan,Yunnan and Guizhou province,including five large populations,Chuangui population,Aba population,Liangshan population,Eastern Yunnan population,Southern Yunnan population and 3 small populations,Batang population,Yajiang population and Derong population.The honey bee population in basin had middle size;Aba population had larger body size and showed black,especially showed in tergites and sternites.The honeybees of Aba population had larger length of proboscis,forewing,hind leg and wax plate and had the smallest D7(P<0.01);The honeybees of Liangshan population had middle body size,approaching Chuangui population,but had larger length of proboscis and forewing.Three small populations,which were both distributed in Garze,had large body size,approaching Aba population.The honeybees of Batang population had the least cubital index(P<0.01);the honeybees of Yajiang population had the biggest B4,and the least N23,J10,E9(P<0.01).Derong population had smaller length of hind leg,but the largest width of tomentum on tergite 5(P<0.01).Eastern Yunnan population had smaller length of proboscis,forewing,hind leg and wax plate,but had the least J16(P<0.01).Southern Yunnan population had the least body size,proboscis,forewing,hind leg and wax plate(P<0.01).We explored the relationship between morphological characteristics and ecological factors by correlation analysis and monadic regressive analysis.The length of proboscis and forewing,the length of tergites and sternites would be larger with the rising of altitude.The width of tomentum on tergite 5 also would be larger with the rising of altitude,but only D7 and cubital vein a associated with vein marks had high correlation with altitude.The length of proboscis,forewing,hind leg and wax plate had high correlation with latitude.But only K19,J16,N23 and L13 had high correlation with latitude.In this paper,we verified populations differentiation of Apis cerana among Sichuan,Yunnan and Guizhou province.Then the population differentiation took place among higher altitude,isolation by space and isolation by different ecology.This study could enrich the honey bee population evolutionary ecology and honey bee population genetics,which supply the basic theory of the honey bee conservation and utilization.