From where did the W estern honeybee ( A pis mellifera) originate?

The native range of the honeybee A pis mellifera encompasses E urope, A frica, and the M iddle E ast, whereas the nine other species of Apis are found exclusively in A sia. It is therefore commonly assumed that A . mellifera arose in A sia and expanded into E urope and A frica. However, other hypotheses for the origin of A . mellifera have also been proposed based on phylogenetic trees constructed from genetic markers. In particular, an analysis based on >1000 single‐nucleotide polymorphism markers placed the root of the tree of A . mellifera subspecies among samples from A frica, suggestive of an out‐of‐ A frica expansion. Here, we re‐evaluate the evidence for this and other hypotheses by testing the robustness of the tree topology to different tree‐building methods and by removing specimens with a potentially hybrid background. These analyses do not unequivocally place the root of the tree of A . mellifera subspecies within A frica, and are potentially consistent with a variety of hypotheses for honeybee evolution, including an expansion out of A sia. Our analyses also support high divergence between western and eastern E uropean populations of A . mellifera , suggesting they are likely derived from two distinct colonization routes, although the sources of these expansions are still unclear.