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The objective of this study was to discriminate the honeybee populations distributed in different regions of northern Turkey, in a land strip approximately following the Black Sea Coast up into Thrace. To assess the morphological variation between populations, a total of 58 colonies was evaluated in statistical analysis based on standard morphometric measurements using 34 morphometric characters. Discriminant function analysis (DFA) yielded high percentages of correct reclassifications between 6 tentative population groups from geographic regions differing in climatic and ecological characteristics. In particular, results showed a gradual character shift from the Eastern end of the distribution (bordering Georgia) to the Western end (bordering Bulgaria) of the sampling area. To explore relations to adjacent subspecies, we included reference samples obtained from the Morphometric Bee Data Bank in Oberursel-Germany. This combined DFA confirmed that A. m. anatoliaca is the predominant subspecies in northern part of Turkey extending into Thrace region. A. m. caucasica is prevalent in some Eastern Black Sea locations, but allocations to this subspecies were also found scattered westwards up to Northern Thrace indicating the influence of beekeeper activities. Bees in Southern Thrace were A. m anatoliaca, while those of North Thrace, though mixed, showed close relations to A. m. carnica. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apis mellifera anatoliaca had a mitochondrial genome that was 16,256 bp long, with 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, two rRNA genes, and an AT-rich control region. The phylogenetic tree showed that A. m. anatoliaca was closely related to other subspecies found in Turkey, A. m. caucasica and A. m. meda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]