Abstract

There are three most famous breeds of high royal jelly producing honeybee (Apis mellifera ligustica) in China. After numerous rounds of selection for royal jelly production, the royal jelly production of the three breeds is much higher than the unselected. It is important to maintain genetic diversity of breeds in selective breeding and stock management. The genetic diversity and genetic differentiation of three breeds were surveyed using 18 microsatellite markers. Using Polymorphism Information Content (PIC), mean heterozygosity (H), number of effective alleles, genetic distances, gene flow (Nm) and F-statistics, we evaluated the genetic diversity and genetic differentiation. The result showed that the number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 (AP156 and A028) to 25 (AP053). All of the three breeds showed high levels of heterozygosity. Significant genetic differentiation was found among the three breeds and the average genetic differentiation coefficient of the three breeds was 0.037.

Key words: High royal jelly producing honeybee, Apis mellifera ligustica, genetic diversity, genetic differentiation, microsatellite marker.