Multivariate morphometric analysis of the Apis cerana populations of oceanic Asia

Sarah E. Radloff; H. Randall Hepburn; Stefan Fuchs; Gard W. Otis; Soesilawati. Hadisoesilo; C. Hepburn; Tan Ken

doi:doi:10.1051/apido:2005034

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Volume 36 / No 3 (July-September 2005)

Apidologie, 36 3 (2005) 475-492

Abstract

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Issue		Apidologie Volume 36, Number 3, July-September 2005


Page(s)		475 - 492
DOI		https://doi.org/10.1051/apido:2005034
Published online		09 August 2005

Apidologie 36 (2005) 475-492
DOI: 10.1051/apido:2005034

Multivariate morphometric analysis of the Apis cerana populations of oceanic Asia

Sarah E. Radloff^a, H. Randall Hepburn^b, Stefan Fuchs^c, Gard W. Otis^d, Soesilawati. Hadisoesilo^e, C. Hepburn^a and Tan Ken^f

^a Department of Statistics, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa
^b Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa
^c Institut für Bienenkunde, 61440 Oberursel, Germany
^d Department of Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada
^e Forest and Nature Conservation Research and Development Centre, Bogor, Indonesia
^f Eastern Bee Research Institute, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China

(Received 2 November 2004 - Revised 10 January 2005 - Accepted 10 January 2005; Published online: 9 August 2005)

Abstract - Morphometric analyses of Apis cerana workers from 123 localities in oceanic Asia were made on the whole oceanic group, within specific island systems, and specific mainland-oceanic island "interfaces". Principal component analysis of the total oceanic database yielded two distinct morphoclusters: (1) the bees of Japan and morphocluster and (2) the bees of all the other islands. Discriminant and hierarchical cluster analyses showed overlapping regional clusters in the latter: 2.1 the bees of the Philippines (except Palawan) and some Indonesia, 2.2 bees of Palawan, Malaysian Borneo, Kalimantan, Sumatera and some Sulawesi (Indonesia), and 2.3 most of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Hainan (China) and Sri Lanka. Significant differences between the means of the four groups were demonstrated using Wilks' lambda statistic. The Mahalanobis distances among the honeybee samples are consistent with cyclical, geological rises and falls of sea level between present and Pleistocene land areas.

Key words: Apis cerana / morphometrics / biogeography / islands

Corresponding author: Sarah E. Radloff s.radloff@ru.ac.za

© INRA, DIB-AGIB, EDP Sciences 2005