Hi all
We have been discussing honey bee subspecies, and I came upon this in Apidologie:

> The identification of evolutionary lineages of honey bees based on forewing venations proved to be highly reliable, which confirms earlier studies. The accuracy of honey bee subspecies identification was less consistent and ranged from 100 to 50% ... Discrimination of the subspecies is important for the conservation of the honey bee biodiversity. 

This strikes me as a bit of circular logic. If the differences between subspecies are nearly impossible to detect, how can they then therefore be important for conservation? 

They go on to say:

> Breeders often declare that their breeding lines belong to a particular subspecies. In order to keep those breeding lines as pure stocks, breeders need to eliminate colonies representing other subspecies.

Again, this is circular. These breeders are interesting in marketing "breeds." That can hardly be justification for the prohibition of other "breeds." 

They say:

> The current analysis clearly pointed out difficulties with the discrimination of some subspecies. This might partly come from the restriction of the analysis of wing venation (as for example the confusion of A. m. ligustica with A. m. carnica , where colour is a distinctive discriminative body character)...

Or, it may mean that they aren't different subspecies at all, just differently colored. 

Finally:

> The IdentiFly computer software presented here was shown to be highly effective in the discrimination of the evolutionary lineages of honey bees. It was also satisfactorily effective in discriminating most honey bee subspecies, though it failed in some, particularly within the African A lineage.

Again, if you can't tell them apart they shouldn't be split into subspecies at all. Source: Computer software for identification of honey bee subspecies and evolutionary lineages. Apidologie (2018) 49:172–184

¶

Here's an example of two types that are very different externally, but not genetically:

> A.m. capensis and A.m. scutellata have distinctive physiological and behavioral differences. Thus, the two subspecies are quite distinct and should not be considered as a single subspecies, even if currently no genetic diagnostic markers have been identified for either subspecies.

Source: Mitochondrial genome diversity and population structure of two western honey bee subspecies in the Republic of South Africa. Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 1333 (2018).

Meanwhile researchers find that a single mutation can create a completely different type. Is this _another_ subspecies or just a bizarre mutant?

>  A single nonsynonymous SNP was inferred to be sufficient to lead to the striking phenotypic change from a social honey bee worker into a thelytokous social parasite.

Source: A single SNP turns a social honey bee (Apis mellifera) worker into a selfish parasite. Molecular biology and evolution (2019).

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