Apidologie 38 (2007) 289-295
DOI: 10.1051/apido:2007011

Environmentally-induced developmental effects on morphometric characters of workers in Apis cerana colonies

Ken Tan^{a, b}, Sarah E. Radloff^c, H. Randall Hepburn^{b, d}, Mingxian Yang^b, Lianjiang Zhang^b and Xian Fan<sup>b

a</sup>  Key Laboratory of Agricultural Biodiversity for Pest Management, Ministry of Education, Yunnan Agricultural University, Heilongtan Kunming, 650201, China
^b  Eastern Bee Research Institute, Yunnan Agricultural University, 650201 Kunming, China
^c  Department of Statistics, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa
^d  Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa

(Received 13 July 2006 - Revised 17 October 2006 - Accepted 9 November 2006 - Published online 14 June 2007)

Abstract - Experiments were performed to tease out the possible effects of single and mixed-species colonies (Apis cerana and A. mellifera ligustica) on morphological development in A. cerana workers. The graph of principal components scores revealed three distinct morphological clusters: (A) A. cerana in A. cerana cells reared by A. cerana worker bees (cerana control group); (B) A. cerana in A. mellifera cells reared by A. cerana (cerana cell-test group); (C) A. cerana in A. mellifera cells reared by mixed A. cerana and A. mellifera (cerana test group), A. mellifera in A. mellifera cells reared by A. mellifera (mellifera control group) and A. mellifera in A. cerana cells reared by A. mellifera (mellifera cell-test group). It is shown that A. cerana worker bees larger in size than normal can be produced both by rearing them in larger cells and also by rearing them in mixed-species colonies.

Key words: Apis cerana / Apis mellifera / morphometrics / development / mixed-species colonies

Corresponding author: r.hepburn@ru.ac.za

© INRA, DIB-AGIB, EDP Sciences 2007