LOCALIZATION OF VARIATION AT LOCUS 178 IN Apis mellifera (L.)
 BY RESTRICTION MAPPING



 Introduction


 African and European groups of honey bee subspecies have been shown

to differ at locus 178 in the number and location of the four- and five-

nucleotide base recognition sequences of the restriction enzymes Mspl and

Ddel, respectively. While the ultimate resolution of the variation at locus 178

occurs at the level of the DNA sequence, RFLP analysis has permitted an

assessment of the variation using a small portion of its nucleotides.

 The five groups of variants identified at 178 for both Mspl and Ddel,

which have similar restriction fragments and geographic distributions, may

share a subset of restriction sites. The number of fragments present in all

variants within a group ranged from one in the M500 group to ten in the M200

group (Figure 8). Between any two groups of Mspl or Ddel variants, the

number of common fragments ranged from one to seven. One fragment was

common to all Mspl variants (Figure 8), and no fragments appeared to be

common to all Ddel variants (Figure 11). It is likely that a specific composite

of restriction sites exits for each subspecies or group of subspecies.