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Dietary Phytochemicals, Honey Bee Longevity and Pathogen Tolerance

Continued loss of natural habitats with native prairies and wildflower patches is eliminating diverse sources of pollen, nectar and phytochemicals therein for foraging bees. The longstanding plant-pollinator mutualism reiterates the role of phytochemicals in sustaining plant-pollinator relationship...

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Autores principales: Bernklau, Elisa, Bjostad, Louis, Hogeboom, Alison, Carlisle, Ashley, H. S., Arathi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6359238/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30626025
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects10010014
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author Bernklau, Elisa
Bjostad, Louis
Hogeboom, Alison
Carlisle, Ashley
H. S., Arathi
author_facet Bernklau, Elisa
Bjostad, Louis
Hogeboom, Alison
Carlisle, Ashley
H. S., Arathi
author_sort Bernklau, Elisa
collection PubMed
description Continued loss of natural habitats with native prairies and wildflower patches is eliminating diverse sources of pollen, nectar and phytochemicals therein for foraging bees. The longstanding plant-pollinator mutualism reiterates the role of phytochemicals in sustaining plant-pollinator relationship and promoting honey bee health. We studied the effects of four phytochemicals—caffeine, gallic acid, kaempferol and p-coumaric acid, on survival and pathogen tolerance in the European honey bee, Apis mellifera (L.). We recorded longevity of worker bees that were provided ad libitum access to sugar solution supplemented with different concentrations of phytochemicals. We artificially infected worker bees with the protozoan parasite, Nosema ceranae. Infected bees were provided access to the same concentrations of the phytochemicals in the sugar solution, and their longevity and spore load at mortality were determined. Bees supplemented with dietary phytochemicals survived longer and lower concentrations were generally more beneficial. Dietary phytochemicals enabled bees to combat infection as seen by reduced spore-load at mortality. Many of the phytochemicals are plant defense compounds that pollinators have evolved to tolerate and derive benefits from. Our findings support the chemical bases of co-evolutionary interactions and reiterate the importance of diversity in floral nutrition sources to sustain healthy honey bee populations by strengthening the natural mutualistic relationships.
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spelling pubmed-63592382019-02-12 Dietary Phytochemicals, Honey Bee Longevity and Pathogen Tolerance Bernklau, Elisa Bjostad, Louis Hogeboom, Alison Carlisle, Ashley H. S., Arathi Insects Article Continued loss of natural habitats with native prairies and wildflower patches is eliminating diverse sources of pollen, nectar and phytochemicals therein for foraging bees. The longstanding plant-pollinator mutualism reiterates the role of phytochemicals in sustaining plant-pollinator relationship and promoting honey bee health. We studied the effects of four phytochemicals—caffeine, gallic acid, kaempferol and p-coumaric acid, on survival and pathogen tolerance in the European honey bee, Apis mellifera (L.). We recorded longevity of worker bees that were provided ad libitum access to sugar solution supplemented with different concentrations of phytochemicals. We artificially infected worker bees with the protozoan parasite, Nosema ceranae. Infected bees were provided access to the same concentrations of the phytochemicals in the sugar solution, and their longevity and spore load at mortality were determined. Bees supplemented with dietary phytochemicals survived longer and lower concentrations were generally more beneficial. Dietary phytochemicals enabled bees to combat infection as seen by reduced spore-load at mortality. Many of the phytochemicals are plant defense compounds that pollinators have evolved to tolerate and derive benefits from. Our findings support the chemical bases of co-evolutionary interactions and reiterate the importance of diversity in floral nutrition sources to sustain healthy honey bee populations by strengthening the natural mutualistic relationships. MDPI 2019-01-08 /pmc/articles/PMC6359238/ /pubmed/30626025 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects10010014 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Bernklau, Elisa
Bjostad, Louis
Hogeboom, Alison
Carlisle, Ashley
H. S., Arathi
Dietary Phytochemicals, Honey Bee Longevity and Pathogen Tolerance
title Dietary Phytochemicals, Honey Bee Longevity and Pathogen Tolerance
title_full Dietary Phytochemicals, Honey Bee Longevity and Pathogen Tolerance
title_fullStr Dietary Phytochemicals, Honey Bee Longevity and Pathogen Tolerance
title_full_unstemmed Dietary Phytochemicals, Honey Bee Longevity and Pathogen Tolerance
title_short Dietary Phytochemicals, Honey Bee Longevity and Pathogen Tolerance
title_sort dietary phytochemicals, honey bee longevity and pathogen tolerance
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6359238/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30626025
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects10010014
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