Abstract

Apis cerana abansis is a unique ecological type of the Asian bees, Apis cerana, distributed mainly over China’s western Sichuan plateau. We used Illumina sequencing to obtain the complete mitochondrial genome of A. c. abansis and determined the phylogenetic relationships between A. c. abansis and other Apis cerana ecotypes. The mitogenome of A. c. abansis contains 15 694 bps and includes 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes and 1 A+T-rich control region. All protein-coding genes are initiated by ATT or ATG codons and terminated by the typical stop codons, TAA or TAG, but the start codon of the ATP8 gene (one of the 13 protein-coding genes) is ATC. The ML phylogenetic tree based on the 13 protein-coding genes showed that A. c. abansis formed a sister group with the Yun-Gui Plateau Chinese bee and the Central China Chinese bee. This study provides a scientific basis for the protection and breeding of A. c. abansis.