Genetic variations of DNA barcoding region of bumble bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) from South Korea

We reassessed species diversity and genetic structure in Korean bumble bees using DNA barcode analyses of 484 cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences from 24 morphospecies. Based on COI, all of the Korean species formed distinct clades in the phylogenetic trees, except for Bombus (Megabombus) koreanus in the maximum likelihood tree. Five species exhibited low interspecific genetic distances (range: 1.2–2.7%), indicating that they are recently diverged species. COI data could not be used to identify bumble bees at the subspecies level. For the dominant species, most local populations in Korea were panmictic and were more closely related to continental populations than to allopatric populations. Furthermore, sympatric haplotypes within Korea could be distinguished. We detected B. (Megabombus) diversus in South Korea for the first time. Our results demonstrate that DNA barcoding is a useful technique for species recognition and for allopatric and sympatric haplotype detection in bumble bees.