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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...

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Autores principales: Brettell, L. E., Martin, S. J.
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
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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.
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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
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