Apidologie

Apidologie (2008)
DOI: 10.1051/apido:2008029

Morphometric analysis and biogeography of Apis koschevnikovi Enderlein (1906)

S. Hadisoesilo¹, Rika Raffiudin², Wirian Susanti², Tri Atmowidi², Colleen Hepburn³, Sarah E. Radloff³, Stefan Fuchs⁴ and H. Randall Hepburn⁵

¹ Forest and Nature Conservation Res. and Dev. Centre, Jl. Gunung Batu, Bogor, Indonesia
² Department of Biology, Fac. of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Bogor Agricultural University, Jalan Raya Pajajaran, Bogor, Indonesia
³ Department of Statistics, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
⁴ Institut fuer Bienenkunde (Polytechnische Gesellschaft), Fachbereich Biologie der J. W. Goethe-Universitaet Frankfurt am Main, Oberursel, Germany
⁵ Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

Received 12 July 2007 - Revised 3 March 2008 - Accepted 20 March 2008 - Published online 17 June 2008

Abstract - Multivariate morphometric analyses were performed on workers of Apis koschevnikovi from throughout their distribution in Malaysia, Borneo and Indonesia. Principal component analysis showed one morphocluster comprising bees from Kalimantan Indonesia, Sarawak, Sabah and the Malay Peninsula. The population is more homogeneous than A. cerana over the same geographical area, as seen from the average coefficient of variation in 12 characters in A. koschevnikovi (1.8%) compared to those same characters in A. cerana (4.3%). A. koschevnikovi is delimited to the tropical evergreen forest regions of Sumatera, Borneo, and the Malay Peninsula (Fig. 1). The altitudinal distributions show that A. koschevnikovi extends from sea level to about 2 650 m. This significantly differs from A. nuluensis but not A. cerana. It appears that the range of A. koschevnikovi is diminishing because it is now either poorly represented or absent in several areas where it has been previously recorded.