Conservation of Asian honey bees Benjamin P. Oldroyd, Piyamas Nanork To cite this version: Benjamin P. Oldroyd, Piyamas Nanork. Conservation of Asian honey bees. Apidologie, Springer Verlag, 2009, 40 (3), 10.1051/apido/2009021. hal-00892024 HAL Id: hal-00892024 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00892024 Submitted on 1 Jan 2009 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Apidologie 40 (2009) 296–312 Available online at: c INRA/DIB-AGIB/EDP Sciences, 2009 www.apidologie.org DOI: 10.1051/apido/2009021 Review article Conservation of Asian honey bees* Benjamin P. Oldroyd1, Piyamas Nanork2 1 Behaviour and Genetics of Social Insects Lab, School of Biological Sciences A12, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia 2 Department of Biology, Mahasarakham University, Mahasarakham, Thailand Received 26 June 2008 – Revised 14 October 2008 – Accepted 29 October 2008 Abstract – East Asia is home to at least 9 indigenous species of honey bee. These bees are extremely valu- able because they are key pollinators of about 1/3 of crop species, provide significant income to some of the world’s poorest people, and are prey items for some endemic vertebrates. Furthermore, Southeast Asian Dipterocarp forests appear to be adapted to pollination by honey bees. Thus long-term decline in honey bee populations may lead to significant changes in the pollinator ecology of these forests, exacerbating the more direct effects of deforestation and wood harvesting on forest health. Although complete extinction of any honey bee species is seen as unlikely, local extinction is likely to occur across extensive areas. The most significant threats to local honey bee populations are deforestation and excessive hunting pressure. Conservation of East Asian honey bees requires immediate action to determine what rate of colony harvest- ing by honey hunters is sustainable. This requires information on the demography of hunted populations, particularly the intrinsic growth rates and the rates of harvest. Apis / Conservation / Honey hunting / demography / sustainable harvest / pollination / dipterocarp forests 1. INTRODUCTION man population size, especially when cou- pled with increased affluence and per capita In the 100 years between 1880 and 1980 consumption inevitably causes increased pres- the South and Southeast Asian nations of In- sures on natural ecosystems. (Nonetheless a dia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thai- better-educated and wealthier population may land, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, have greater capacity and desire to do some- Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philip- thing about conservation than a desperately pines, grew in human population by 262%, poor one). Of particular concern for honey the area of cultivated land by 86%, the bee conservation is broad scale conversion of area bearing grass and shrub vegetation by primary forest to short-cycle forestry, rubber 20%, while total forest cover decreased by and oil palm plantation, agriculture, and urban 29% (Flint, 1994), Deforestation has contin- areas (Kevan and Viana, 2003; Sodhi et al., ued unabated during the last 25 years (Sodhi 2004). All these activities involve removal of et al., 2004). The region has developed an ex- mature trees suitable for nesting, and often tremely high human population density, and involve reduction in food resources and the in some countries such as Pakistan, Nepal use of pesticides. In some cases, direct in- and Bangladesh, rapid population growth con- teractions with humans can result in nest de- tinues today (Anon, 2004). Increasing hu- struction (Underwood, 1992). Increasing pop- ulation and affluence coupled with a desire Corresponding author: B.P. Oldroyd, for natural products harvested from the wild [email protected] can also increase economic incentive for hunt- * Manuscript editor: Mark Brown ing and gathering within the remaining forests Article published by EDP Sciences Conservation of Asian honey bees 297 (Nath et al., 1994;Chenetal.,1998; Wilkie nity of exploiting new molecular-based means and Carpenter, 1999; Nath and Sharma, 2007). of rapidly assessing population size (Moritz Despite the foregoing, indigenous honey et al., 2007a, b), even in the most impenetra- bees remain common throughout much of their ble forest. This technique promises to provide original range. The red dwarf honey bee Apis a sound basis for the understanding demog- florea is actually expanding its range into raphy of wild honey bee populations every- the Middle East (Mossagegh, 1993)andthe where, but will be particularly useful for Asian Eastern hive bee A. cerana into New Guinea honey bees in remote jungles. (Anderson, 1994). In Hong Kong, one of the most urbanized and altered landscapes on the planet, A. cerana remains common, and is 2. DIVERSITY IN APIS:WHATHAVE an important pollinator of remnant vegetation WE GOT TO CONSERVE? (Corlett, 2001). Nonetheless there are obvi- ous signs of threatening processes at work (see Planning for species conservation requires below) on some species in some areas, and (among other things) an understanding of the we suspect that these processes either have or phylogenetic relationships among the species soon will drive local extinctions. Perhaps this of concern (Vane Wright et al., 1991; Crozier, has already occurred in the dwarf bees on the 1992;May,1994; Humphries et al., 1995). island of Hong Kong where they are appar- This is because we should like to preserve bio- ently absent (Corlett, 2001). The red honey diversity in its broadest sense. Thus a species bee A. koschevnikovi is now extremely rare on that is phylogenetically distant from all oth- peninsular Malaysia and the south of Thailand ers is generally reckoned to be of higher con- (Otis, 1996). Whether complete extinction of servation value than a subspecies (Crozier, a particular species is likely or possible is not 1992). For example, we should be more con- clear, but the threat is real and potential conse- cerned about the loss of highly novel species quences of such an extinction are significant. like the tuatara (Sphenodon spp.) than by the In this review we aim to document the eco- loss of morphological variant of an otherwise logical, economic and social values of Asian widespread taxon. honey bees and identify the main threats to The taxonomy of the honey bees has been them. We follow with a brief introduction to given considerable attention and we now un- sustainable yield theory. Much of this material derstand the broad evolutionary history of was reviewed in the monograph Asian honey the genus well (Raffiudin and Crozier, 2007) bees: Biology, conservation and human in- (Fig. 1). Broadly, there are three groupings, teractions (Oldroyd and Wongsiri, 2006), but which have sometimes been regarded as sub- we re-present it here for completeness and to genera (Maa, 1953). These are the dwarf bees, expand and update it. We then identify the which build a single comb surrounding a twig critical data and studies of life history traits or small branch, the medium-sized cavity nest- that are required to understand the demogra- ing bees which build a series of parallel combs, phy of a honey bee population (Seeley, 1978; usually within a defendable cavity, and the gi- Oldroyd et al., 1997). Remarkably little is ant bees which build a single comb suspended known about the reproductive behaviour of beneath a rock overhang or tree branch. Each Asian species, and this lack renders our un- group has two or more species, with the cavity- derstanding of Asian honey bee demography nesting bees being the most speciose (Otis, little more than educated guesses (Oldroyd 1996; Oldroyd and Wongsiri, 2006). and Wongsiri, 2006). We then discuss what The species and subspecies joined by solid steps can and should be taken to help conserve lines in Figure 1 are strongly supported as be- honey bees. Many of these, such as a reduc- ing taxonomically distinct based on sequence tion in deforestation, are common to broader divergence of nuclear and mitochondrial genes conservation goals, but some, such as less (Raffiudin and Crozier, 2007;DeLaRúaetal., destructive hunting techniques, are unique to 2009). In addition, there are probably other honey bees. Finally we discuss the opportu- species of honey bee that are not yet described. 298 B.P. Oldroyd, P. Nanork A. mellifera A. koschevnikovi ‘A.indica’ A. nuluensis A. cerana Cavity nesting A. nigrocincta A. laboriosa A. d. binghami Giant A. d. breviligula A. dorsata Figure 1. Phylogeny of the A. florea ffi Dwarf honey bees (after Ra udin and 0.1 A. andreniformis Crozier, 2007). Dotted lines in- dicate unconfirmed species. Two likely candidates are indicated by dashed we eat is derived from plants which are either lines on the phylogeny of Figure 1: the yellow dependent on or benefit from insect pollina- ‘plains’ cavity nesting honey bee of south In- tion, especially by honey bees (e.g. Williams, dia (Oldroyd et al., 2006), and the giant honey 1996;Richards,2001; Klein et al., 2007). bee of the Philippines A. d. breviligula (Maa, The value of crops pollinated by the west- 1953). The latter has not been analysed genet- ern honey bee A. mellifera is staggeringly ically, but is almost certainly a distinct species large (eg Scott-Dupree et al., 1995;Morseand from A. dorsata based on its dark coloration Calderone, 2000; Gordon and Davis, 2003), (personal observations of BPO), absence of but unfortunately, no estimates are available nest aggregations (Morse and Laigo, 1969), for the value of honey bee pollination for and geographical isolation.