Multiple mitogenomes indicate Things Fall Apart with Out of Africa or Asia hypotheses for the phylogeographic diversity of Honey Bees (Apis mellifera)

Abstract

Abstract Previous morpho-molecular studies of evolutionary relationships within the economically important genus of honey bees (Apis), including the Western Honey Bee (A. mellifera L.), have suggested Out of Africa or Asia origins and subsequent spread to Europe. I test these hypotheses by a meta-analysis of complete mitochondrial DNA coding regions (11.0 Kbp) of 22 nominal subspecies represented by 74 individual sequences of A. mellifera. Parsimony, distance, and likelihood analyses identify six nested clades: Things Fall Apart with Out of Africa or Asia hypotheses. Phylogeographic analysis shows instead a basal origin of A. m. mellifera in Europe ~780 Kya, and extension to Southeast Europe and Asia Minor ~720 Kya. European bees spread southward via a Levantine / Nilotic / Arabian corridor into Africa ~540 Kya. A circum- Mediterranean clade was re-established in Iberia ~100 Kya, and thence back through the Mediterranean islands into North Africa. Paraphyletic anomalies are artefacts of mis-referral in GenBank of sequences to the wrong subspecies, which are clarified by inclusion of multiple individuals from each subspecies. Further errors arise from reliance on faulty sequences and (or) methods of inference. Nominal subspecies within the Asia Minor and Mediterranean clades are less differentiated than are individuals within other subspecies.