title: Genetic structure of Mount Huang honey bee (Apis cerana) populations: evidence from microsatellite polymorphism.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Mount Huang eastern honey bees (Apis cerana) are an endemic population, which is well adapted to the local agricultural and ecological environment. In this study, the genetic structure of seven eastern honey bees (A. cerana) populations from Mount Huang in China were analyzed by SSR (simple sequence repeat) markers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results revealed that 16 pairs of primers used amplified a total of 143 alleles. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 6 to 13, with a mean value of 8.94 alleles per locus. Observed and expected heterozygosities showed mean values of 0.446 and 0.831 respectively. UPGMA cluster analysis grouped seven eastern honey bees in three groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results obtained show a high genetic diversity in the honey bee populations studied in Mount Huang, and high differentiation among all the populations, suggesting that scarce exchange of honey bee species happened in Mount Huang. Our study demonstrated that the Mount Huang honey bee populations still have a natural genome worth being protected for conservation.
authors.affiliation: Honey bee Research Institute, College of Animal Science & Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, 230036 China.
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Honey bee Research Institute, College of Animal Science & Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, 230036 China.
authors.forename: Tengfei
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Honey bee Research Institute, College of Animal Science & Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, 230036 China.
authors.forename: Sisi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Honey bee Research Institute, College of Animal Science & Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, 230036 China.|Apiculture Research Institute, College of Animal Science & Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, 230036 Anhui China.
authors.forename: Linsheng
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: College of Forest and Garden, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, 230000, 230036 Anhui China.
authors.forename: Shoudong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bi
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000235:genetics*; D002681:China; D005787:Gene Frequency; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
keywords: Apis cerana; Honey bee; Microsatellite; Mount huang; SSRs