title: A fifth major genetic group among honeybees revealed in Syria.
abstract: 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.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  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.
authors: CNRS, Laboratoire Evolution, Génomes et Spéciation LEGS, Avenue de la Terrasse, 91189 Gif-sur-Yvette, France. mohamed.alburaki.1@ulaval.ca.
authors: Mohamed
authors: M
authors: Alburaki
authors: Bénédicte
authors: B
authors: Bertrand
authors: Hélène
authors: H
authors: Legout
authors: Sibyle
authors: S
authors: Moulin
authors: Ali
authors: A
authors: Alburaki
authors: Walter Steven
authors: WS
authors: Sheppard
authors: Lionel
authors: L
authors: Garnery
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D056426:Genetic Loci; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D016678:Genome; D006239:Haplotypes; D006579:Heterozygote; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000235:genetics; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D013593:Syria
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial