1. ¹Departamento de Genética e Evolução, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil
2. ²Departamento de Biologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
3. ³Departamento de Genética, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil

Correspondence: Dr MA Del Lama, Departamento de Genética e Evolução, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Rodovia Washington Luís Km 235, São Carlos, São Paulo 13565-905, Brazil. E-mail: dmdl@power.ufscar.br

Received 4 January 2006; Revised 23 June 2006; Accepted 28 June 2006; Published online 6 September 2006.

Abstract

Mitochondrial genotypes of Africanized honeybees from Brazil and Uruguay were surveyed by DraI restriction of the COI–COII region. Eleven mitotypes were found, three of which had not previously been described (A28–A30). Out of 775 samples (725 from Brazil, 50 from Uruguay), 197 were A1 and 520 were A4. A1 frequency increases toward the north of Brazil, whereas A4 frequency increases toward the south, a pattern echoing the African distribution. The origin of the A4 and most of the A1 African patterns can be attributed to the introduction of Apis mellifera scutellata into Brazil in 1956. The A29 and A30 patterns have the P1 sequence observed in many Iberian Peninsula samples, which represent the traces of the introductions into Brazil and Uruguay by settlers.