title: Climate rather than geography separates two European honeybee subspecies.
abstract: Both climatic and geographical factors play an important role for the biogeographical distribution of species. The Carpathian mountain ridge has been suggested as a natural geographical divide between the two honeybee subspecies Apis mellifera carnica and A. m. macedonica. We sampled one worker from one colony each at 138 traditional apiaries located across the Carpathians spanning from the Hungarian plains to the Danube delta. All samples were sequenced at the mitochondrial tRNA(Leu)-cox2 intergenic region and genotyped at twelve microsatellite loci. The Carpathians had only limited impact on the biogeography because both subspecies were abundant on either side of the mountain ridge. In contrast, subspecies differentiation strongly correlated with the various temperature zones in Romania. A. m. carnica is more abundant in regions with the mean average temperature below 9 °C, whereas A. m. macedonica honeybees are more frequent in regions with mean temperatures above 9 °C. This range selection may have impact on the future biogeography in the light of anticipated global climatic changes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Apiculture and Sericulture, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, Calea Mănăştur 3-5, 400372, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
authors.forename: Cristian O
authors.initials: CO
authors.lastname: Coroian
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Muñoz
authors.forename: Ellen A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Schlüns
authors.forename: Orsolya R
authors.initials: OR
authors.lastname: Paniti-Teleky
authors.forename: Silvio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Erler
authors.forename: Emilia M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Furdui
authors.forename: Liviu A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Mărghitaş
authors.forename: Daniel S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Dezmirean
authors.forename: Helge
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schlüns
authors.forename: Pilar
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: de la Rúa
authors.forename: Robin F A
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Moritz
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D002980:Climate; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D017344:Genes, Insect; D005828:Genetics, Population; D005843:Geography; D007558:Italy; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018843:Republic of North Macedonia; D012383:Romania; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017524:Slovenia
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial
keywords: Apis mellifera carnica; Apis mellifera macedonica; microsatellites; mitochondrial haplotypes; temperature zones