A method for estimating variation in the phenotypic expression of morphological characters by thelytokous parthenogenesis in Apis mellifera capensis

Abstract

Thelytokous parthenogenesis in Cape worker honeybees, Apis mellifera capensis, was used to produce a series of clonal progeny that were reared in three different, queenless arrhenotokous A. m. scutellata host colonies. Each individual Cape worker bee was genotyped at 4 DNA microsatellite loci to verify its clonal status and measured for 36 morphological characters. The clonal workers bees, all of the same thelytokous matriline, were then analysed by multivariate analysis to determine the quantitative effects of environment on the morphological characters. This in turn allows the estimation of the natural variation in the phenotypic expression of morphological characters. Coefficients of environmental variation were calculated and the relative stability of the character set was, in decreasing order, body size, forewings, wing venation, hairs and pigmentation.