Indian Journal of Experimental Biology Vol. 57, January 2019, pp. 55-58 Phylogenetic variations found in Indian honeybee species, Apis cerana Fabr. of North Western Ghats of Maharashtra, India Rahul Gaikwad 1,4 , Swapnil Gaikwad 2 , Yogesh Shouche 3 & Bimalendu B Nath 1 * 1 Department of Zoology; 2 Department of Biotechnology, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune-411 007, Maharashtra, India 3 Microbial Culture Collection, National Center for Cell Science, Pune-411 007, Maharashtra, India 4 Department of Zoology, Ahmednagar College, Ahmednagar-414 001, Maharashtra, India Received 09 July 2017; revised 03 December 2018 Molecular systematics of honeybee species Apis cerana Fabr. inhabiting North Western Ghats of India have not been investigated till date. This is the first report of phylogenetic variation in Apis cerana bees sampled from five diverse ecotypes of North Western Ghats of Maharashtra, viz. Pune, Nashik, Mahabaleshwar, Bhimashankar and Wai. Over the years, taxonomy of honeybee has been mostly based on morphometric characters. In the present study, we carried out molecular phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequence with respect to COI gene. It was further aimed to confirm the taxonomical status of A. cerana from the Western Ghats of India in comparison with the Asian populations of A. cerana. Keywords: Cytochrome oxidase I, Molecular phylogeny, Western Ghats The characteristics of geographically distinct species provide important insight to understand how evolutionary forces led to ecotype polymorphism. The geographical adaptation and distribution of species led to the evolution of polymorphic forms. One of the major problems of the contemporary scenario of biodiversity and systematic research has been to assess geographical variance of population at the intraspecific level. The advent of molecular tools in taxonomy has emerged as a useful tool to resolve such issues 1 . In this context, oriental honey bees attracted the attention of molecular evolutionary biologists due to heterogeneity of climatic conditions. Apis cerana Fabr., a keystone pollinator exhibiting wide range of distribution has proved to be a suitable model system to address molecular phylogenetic issues pertaining to its adaptation and evolutionary diversification 2 . Over the years, the taxonomy of honeybees has been investigated and has been classified at the subspecies level on the basis of morphometric analysis. Several studies have been conducted on A. cerana from the northeastern part of India including the ranges of the Himalaya based on morphometric parameters 3-7 . However, only a few attempts have been made to reveal the genetic variation in A. cerana at the molecular level. Nevertheless, there are various reports about studies from many other parts of Asia in both A. mellifera 9 and in A. cerana 10,11 . In the past, there have been attempts to assess mitochondrial variation of A. cerana from the southern states of India 8,12 . However, sequences generated in these studies are not reported in any of the databases, and thus could not be authenticated. Attempts were also made to identify A. cerana using DNA barcoding 13 . However, no such attempt has been made to investigate the phylogenetic variation of A. cerana bees from the North Western Ghats of India. It is noteworthy that the Western Ghats of Maharashtra has been identified as one of the biodiversity hotspots in the world 14 . Due to its variation within and between species, mitochondrial gene Cytochrome oxidase I (COI) is one of the candidate markers to resolve phylogeny, not only in honeybees but also in several other taxa 15,16 . In this study, we explored the taxonomic and phylogenetic position of Apis cerana collected from various regions of the North Western Ghats of India. Materials and Methods Collection and submission of sample The present study was carried out in five different locations of the North Western Ghats of Maharashtra, India, viz. Pune, Nashik, Mahabaleshwar, Bhimashankar and Wai (Fig. 1). Locality data and sample codes are given in Table 1. These honeybee colonies were wild and captured from natural colonies and later reared in hive boxes in that location itself (study spot). The colonies reared in hive boxes have less probability of dessertation and easy to maintain and handle. —————— *Correspondence: Ph.: +91 20 25601436; Fax: +91 20 25690617 E-mail: bbnath@gmail.com