The Honeybee originated in Asia – social behavior helped to colonize vast areas of the globe

It was long debated among scientists, where on the globe the Western Honeybee Apis mellif-era had its evolutionary origin. Thus far, Africa was thought to be a plausible origin, but the data were incomplete. Led by Kathleen Dogantzis and Amro Zayed from York University (Can-ada), an international team of scientists including Dr. Eckart Stolle from the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB) in Bonn (Germany), now used comprehensive genomic analyses and could show that the Honeybee originated in Asia and from there colo-nized Africa and Europe. The results were recently published in the journal Science Advances.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft