The invasive Korea and Japan types of Varroa destructor, ectoparasitic mites of the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera), are two partly isolated clones.

ABSTRACT: Varroa destructor, now a major pest of the Western honeybee, Apis mellifera, switched from its original host, the Eastern honeybee, A. cerana, ca. 50 years ago. So far, only two out of several known mitochondrial haplotypes of V. destructor have been found to be capable of reproducing on A. mellifera (Korea and Japan). These haplotypes are associated in almost complete cytonuclear disequilibrium to diagnostic alleles at 11 microsatellite loci. By contrast, microsatellite polymorphism within each type is virtually absent, because of a severe bottleneck at the time of host change. Accordingly, 12 mitochondrial sequences of 5185 nucleotides displayed 0.40% of nucleotide divergence between haplotypes and no intra haplotype variation. Hence, each type has a quasi-clonal structure. The nascent i

SUBMITTER: Solignac M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1634981 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature