Thursday, 3 August 2006
620

Varroa and Apis in Thailand: mtDNA and AFLP studies of genetic strains of host and parasites

Deborah R. Smith and Natapot Warrit. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology/Entomology, University of Kansas, Haworth Hall, 1200 Sunnyside Ave, Lawrence, KS 66045

Thailand is a unique location for study of host-parasite relationships between the parasitic mites, Varroa, and their Apis hosts.  Both V. destructor (with Vietnam mitochondrial haplotype) and V. jacobsoni occur naturally on native Thai  A. cerana hosts.  In addition, two major mtDNA lineages of A. cerana, the southern or Sundaland and northern or Mainland lineages, meet in peninsular Thailand.   Apis  mellifera and its parasites, V. destructor with the foreign Japan and Korean haplotypes, have also been introduced. 

Work of Anderson and Trueman (2000) and Smith and Hagen (1996) suggested a broad match of Varroa species to A. cerana mtDNA lineages: V. destructor on Mainland Asian A. cerana, V. jacobsoni on Sundaland A. cerana, and as-yet-unnamed Varroa species on Philippine A. cerana.  Recent research (Warrit et al. 2006) on Thai populations of Varroa and A. cerana indicates that mite species boundaries do not coincide with boundaries of A. cerana mtDNA lineages. However, their results indicate a match of host and parasite at finer geographic and genetics scale, since Mainland and Sundaland A. cerana host V. jacobsoni with different mtDNA haplotypes.

In this study we use a DNA fingerprinting technique, amplified fragment length polymorphisms or TE-AFLPs (van der Wurff et al. 2000; Vos et al. 1995), to investigate differentiation of the nuclear genomes of the southern (Sundaland) and northern (Mainland) Apis cerana populations, southern and northern strains of V. jacobsoni, and native and introduced strains of V. destructor.

Anderson D. L. and Trueman J. W. H.  2000.  Experimental and Applied Acarology. 24:165-189
Smith D. R. and Hagen R. H.  1996. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society. 69:294-310
van der Wurff A. W. G. et al.  2000.  Nucleic Acids Research. 28:e105
Vos P. et al.  1995.  Nucleic Acids Research. 23:4407-4414
Warrit N. et al. 2006.  Apidologie. 37:19-30


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