Deciphering the molecular phylogenetics of the Asian honey bee, Apis cerana and inferring the phylogeographical relationships using DNA barcoding

Abstract

The Asian honey bee, Apis cerana are honey producers and pollinators of cultivated crops and wild plants. They occur in Asia, from Afghanistan to China and from Japan to southern Indonesia. A. cerana have yellow stripes on their abdomen and are habituated to Indian plains. These are less aggressive and also display less swarming behavior. Here we report the partial sequence of cytochrome oxidase sub unit I gene (COI) of A. cerana (GenBank Accession No. KM230116) and its phylogenetic relationship. The COI gene sequence of A. cerana showed considerable variation with other Apis species. The COI DNA barcode developed in this study can be used for accurate species identification. The COI partial coding sequence of A. cerana showed 2.72% difference over 513 bp nucleotides to A. cerana isolated from Indonesia (GU191875) and 6.04% to A. cerana isolated from Japan (AF153105). A. cerana demonstrates the efficiency of the barcoding gene in discriminating global phylogeographical variants among the Apis species complex.