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Prospects for probiotics in social bees

Social corbiculate bees are major pollinators. They have characteristic bacterial microbiomes associated with their hives and their guts. In honeybees and bumblebees, worker guts contain a microbiome composed of distinctive bacterial taxa shown to benefit hosts. These benefits include stimulating im...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Motta, Erick V. S., Powell, J. Elijah, Leonard, Sean P., Moran, Nancy A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9058534/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35491599
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0156
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author Motta, Erick V. S.
Powell, J. Elijah
Leonard, Sean P.
Moran, Nancy A.
author_facet Motta, Erick V. S.
Powell, J. Elijah
Leonard, Sean P.
Moran, Nancy A.
author_sort Motta, Erick V. S.
collection PubMed
description Social corbiculate bees are major pollinators. They have characteristic bacterial microbiomes associated with their hives and their guts. In honeybees and bumblebees, worker guts contain a microbiome composed of distinctive bacterial taxa shown to benefit hosts. These benefits include stimulating immune and metabolic pathways, digesting or detoxifying food, and defending against pathogens and parasites. Stressors including toxins and poor nutrition disrupt the microbiome and increase susceptibility to opportunistic pathogens. Administering probiotic bacterial strains may improve the health of individual bees and of hives, and several commercial probiotics are available for bees. However, evidence for probiotic benefits is lacking or mixed. Most bacterial species used in commercial probiotics are not native to bee guts. We present new experimental results showing that cultured strains of native bee gut bacteria colonize robustly while bacteria in a commercial probiotic do not establish in bee guts. A defined community of native bee gut bacteria resembles unperturbed native gut communities in its activation of genes for immunity and metabolism in worker bees. Although many questions remain unanswered, the development of natural probiotics for honeybees, or for commercially managed bumblebees, is a promising direction for protecting the health of managed bee colonies. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Natural processes influencing pollinator health: from chemistry to landscapes’.
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spelling pubmed-90585342022-05-11 Prospects for probiotics in social bees Motta, Erick V. S. Powell, J. Elijah Leonard, Sean P. Moran, Nancy A. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci Articles Social corbiculate bees are major pollinators. They have characteristic bacterial microbiomes associated with their hives and their guts. In honeybees and bumblebees, worker guts contain a microbiome composed of distinctive bacterial taxa shown to benefit hosts. These benefits include stimulating immune and metabolic pathways, digesting or detoxifying food, and defending against pathogens and parasites. Stressors including toxins and poor nutrition disrupt the microbiome and increase susceptibility to opportunistic pathogens. Administering probiotic bacterial strains may improve the health of individual bees and of hives, and several commercial probiotics are available for bees. However, evidence for probiotic benefits is lacking or mixed. Most bacterial species used in commercial probiotics are not native to bee guts. We present new experimental results showing that cultured strains of native bee gut bacteria colonize robustly while bacteria in a commercial probiotic do not establish in bee guts. A defined community of native bee gut bacteria resembles unperturbed native gut communities in its activation of genes for immunity and metabolism in worker bees. Although many questions remain unanswered, the development of natural probiotics for honeybees, or for commercially managed bumblebees, is a promising direction for protecting the health of managed bee colonies. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Natural processes influencing pollinator health: from chemistry to landscapes’. The Royal Society 2022-06-20 2022-05-02 /pmc/articles/PMC9058534/ /pubmed/35491599 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0156 Text en © 2022 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Articles
Motta, Erick V. S.
Powell, J. Elijah
Leonard, Sean P.
Moran, Nancy A.
Prospects for probiotics in social bees
title Prospects for probiotics in social bees
title_full Prospects for probiotics in social bees
title_fullStr Prospects for probiotics in social bees
title_full_unstemmed Prospects for probiotics in social bees
title_short Prospects for probiotics in social bees
title_sort prospects for probiotics in social bees
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9058534/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35491599
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0156
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