Cargando…
Oldest Varroa tolerant honey bee population provides insight into the origins of the global decline of honey bees
The ecto-parasitic mite Varroa destructor has transformed the previously inconsequential Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) into the most important honey bee viral pathogen responsible for the death of millions of colonies worldwide. Naturally, DWV persists as a low level covert infection transmitted between...
Autores principales: | , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2017
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5385554/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28393875 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep45953 |
_version_ | 1782520622487699456 |
---|---|
author | Brettell, L. E. Martin, S. J. |
author_facet | Brettell, L. E. Martin, S. J. |
author_sort | Brettell, L. E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The ecto-parasitic mite Varroa destructor has transformed the previously inconsequential Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) into the most important honey bee viral pathogen responsible for the death of millions of colonies worldwide. Naturally, DWV persists as a low level covert infection transmitted between nest-mates. It has long been speculated that Varroa via immunosuppression of the bees, activate a covert infection into an overt one. Here we show that despite Varroa feeding on a population of 20–40 colonies for over 30 years on the remote island of Fernando de Noronha, Brazil no such activation has occurred and DWV loads have remained at borderline levels of detection. This supports the alternative theory that for a new vector borne viral transmission cycle to start, an outbreak of an overt infection must first occur within the host. Therefore, we predict that this honey bee population is a ticking time-bomb, protected by its isolated position and small population size. This unique association between mite and bee persists due to the evolution of low Varroa reproduction rates. So the population is not adapted to tolerate Varroa and DWV, rather the viral quasispecies has simply not yet evolved the necessary mutations to produce a virulent variant. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5385554 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-53855542017-04-12 Oldest Varroa tolerant honey bee population provides insight into the origins of the global decline of honey bees Brettell, L. E. Martin, S. J. Sci Rep Article The ecto-parasitic mite Varroa destructor has transformed the previously inconsequential Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) into the most important honey bee viral pathogen responsible for the death of millions of colonies worldwide. Naturally, DWV persists as a low level covert infection transmitted between nest-mates. It has long been speculated that Varroa via immunosuppression of the bees, activate a covert infection into an overt one. Here we show that despite Varroa feeding on a population of 20–40 colonies for over 30 years on the remote island of Fernando de Noronha, Brazil no such activation has occurred and DWV loads have remained at borderline levels of detection. This supports the alternative theory that for a new vector borne viral transmission cycle to start, an outbreak of an overt infection must first occur within the host. Therefore, we predict that this honey bee population is a ticking time-bomb, protected by its isolated position and small population size. This unique association between mite and bee persists due to the evolution of low Varroa reproduction rates. So the population is not adapted to tolerate Varroa and DWV, rather the viral quasispecies has simply not yet evolved the necessary mutations to produce a virulent variant. Nature Publishing Group 2017-04-10 /pmc/articles/PMC5385554/ /pubmed/28393875 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep45953 Text en Copyright © 2017, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Brettell, L. E. Martin, S. J. Oldest Varroa tolerant honey bee population provides insight into the origins of the global decline of honey bees |
title | Oldest Varroa tolerant honey bee population provides insight into the origins of the global decline of honey bees |
title_full | Oldest Varroa tolerant honey bee population provides insight into the origins of the global decline of honey bees |
title_fullStr | Oldest Varroa tolerant honey bee population provides insight into the origins of the global decline of honey bees |
title_full_unstemmed | Oldest Varroa tolerant honey bee population provides insight into the origins of the global decline of honey bees |
title_short | Oldest Varroa tolerant honey bee population provides insight into the origins of the global decline of honey bees |
title_sort | oldest varroa tolerant honey bee population provides insight into the origins of the global decline of honey bees |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5385554/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28393875 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep45953 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT brettellle oldestvarroatoleranthoneybeepopulationprovidesinsightintotheoriginsoftheglobaldeclineofhoneybees AT martinsj oldestvarroatoleranthoneybeepopulationprovidesinsightintotheoriginsoftheglobaldeclineofhoneybees |