بررسی خصوصیات ژنتیکی زنبورعسل ایرانی (Apis mellifera meda )

Today, different techniques are used to evaluate genetic characterization in insects. Due to the importance of studying population genetic structure in species conservation, the genetic diversity of Iranian honeybee samples collected from 20 provinces of Iran was investigated using SSR, ISSR, morphological markers. Sampling were carried out during summer 2014 from 20 provinces of Iran (including West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Kurdistan, Zanjan, Gilan, Mazendaran, Golestan, North Khorasan, Razavi Khorasan, Hamedan, Kermanshah, Ilam, Tehran, Lorestan, Isfahan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Fars, Kerman and Sistan and Baluchestan provinces). Totally, 2250 and 300 young worker honeybees were investigated morphologically and molecularly, respectively. In morphological studies, 14 morphological characters (including: forewing length, forewing width, hind wing length, hind wing width, angle A4, angle D7, angle G18, proboscis length, cubital index, sternite index, scutellum color, third & forth tergite length, hind leg length and third tergite color) were measured. Variance analysis of morphological data based on nest design, mean comparison by LSD method and cluster analysis using Ward's method were performed. In molecular studies, total genomic DNA was extracted from the head and thorax sections of each honeybee worker, using salting out method with small modifications. Honeybee populations under study were analyzed using ten pairs of SSR primers including primers A7, A107, A113, B124, A43, AP36, A88, AP33, A28, A35 and ten ISSR primers including primers A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9 and A10. Studied honeybee samples were divided into two separate groups based on Cluster analysis and principal component analysis. In this grouping, the first group were composed of the honeybees collected from North, Northwest and West parts of Iran, and the second group were composed of the honeybees collected from Eastern North, Central part and Southern regions of Iran. The results of all parameters obtained from the analysis of morphological and molecular data of the present study showed that although there were a genetic polymorphism and genetic diversity between different populations of studied honeybees in Iran, but it was a low genetic diversity which should be taken into account by research organizations which are working on honeybee breeding in Iran.