Dataset Information

The relationship between managed bees and the prevalence of parasites in bumblebees.

ABSTRACT: Honey bees and, more recently, bumblebees have been domesticated and are now managed commercially primarily for crop pollination, mixing with wild pollinators during foraging on shared flower resources. There is mounting evidence that managed honey bees or commercially produced bumblebees may affect the health of wild pollinators such as bumblebees by increasing competition for resources and the prevalence of parasites in wild bees. Here we screened 764 bumblebees from around five greenhouses that either used commercially produced bumblebees or did not, as well as bumblebees from 10 colonies placed at two sites either close to or far from a honey bee apiary, for the parasites Apicystis bombi, Crithidia bombi, Nosema bombi, N. ceranae, N. apis and deformed wing virus. We found that A. bombi and C. bombi were more prevalent around greenhouses using commercially produced bumblebees, while C. bombi was 18% more prevalent in bumblebees at the site near to the honey bee apiary than those at the site far from the apiary. Whilst these results are from only a limited number of sites, they support previous reports of parasite spillover from commercially produced bumblebees to wild bumblebees, and suggest that the impact of stress from competing with managed bees or the vectoring of parasites by them on parasite prevalence in wild bees needs further investigation. It appears increasingly likely that the use of managed bees comes at a cost of increased parasites in wild bumblebees, which is not only a concern for bumblebee conservation, but which may impact other pollinators as well.

SUBMITTER: Graystock P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4137657 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

The relationship between managed bees and the prevalence of parasites in bumblebees.

Graystock Peter P Goulson Dave D Hughes William O H WO

PeerJ 20140812

Honey bees and, more recently, bumblebees have been domesticated and are now managed commercially primarily for crop pollination, mixing with wild pollinators during foraging on shared flower resources. There is mounting evidence that managed honey bees or commercially produced bumblebees may affect the health of wild pollinators such as bumblebees by increasing competition for resources and the prevalence of parasites in wild bees. Here we screened 764 bumblebees from around five greenhouses th ...[more]

PMID: 25165632

Similar Datasets

Project description:Managed bees are critical for crop pollination worldwide. As the demand for pollinator-dependent crops increases, so does the use of managed bees. Concern has arisen that managed bees may have unintended negative impacts on native wild bees, which are important pollinators in both agricultural and natural ecosystems. The goal of this study was to synthesize the literature documenting the effects of managed honey bees and bumble bees on wild bees in three areas: (1) competition for floral and nesting resources, (2) indirect effects via changes in plant communities, including the spread of exotic plants and decline of native plants, and (3) transmission of pathogens. The majority of reviewed studies reported negative effects of managed bees, but trends differed across topical areas. Of studies examining competition, results were highly variable with 53% reporting negative effects on wild bees, while 28% reported no effects and 19% reported mixed effects (varying with the bee species or variables examined). Equal numbers of studies examining plant communities reported positive (36%) and negative (36%) effects, with the remainder reporting no or mixed effects. Finally, the majority of studies on pathogen transmission (70%) reported potential negative effects of managed bees on wild bees. However, most studies across all topical areas documented the potential for impact (e.g. reporting the occurrence of competition or pathogens), but did not measure direct effects on wild bee fitness, abundance, or diversity. Furthermore, we found that results varied depending on whether managed bees were in their native or non-native range; managed bees within their native range had lesser competitive effects, but potentially greater effects on wild bees via pathogen transmission. We conclude that while this field has expanded considerably in recent decades, additional research measuring direct, long-term, and population-level effects of managed bees is needed to understand their potential impact on wild bees.

Project description:Trypanosomatids (Trypanosomatidae, Kinetoplastida) are flagellated protozoa containing many parasites of medical or agricultural importance. Among those, Crithidia bombi and C. expoeki, are common parasites in bumble bees around the world, and phylogenetically close to Leishmania and Leptomonas. They have a simple and direct life cycle with one host, and partially castrate the founding queens greatly reducing their fitness. Here, we report the nuclear genome sequences of one clone of each species, extracted from a field-collected infection. Using a combination of Roche 454 FLX Titanium, Pacific Biosciences PacBio RS, and Illumina GA2 instruments for C. bombi, and PacBio for C. expoeki, we could produce high-quality and well resolved sequences. We find that these genomes are around 32 and 34 MB, with 7,808 and 7,851 annotated genes for C. bombi and C. expoeki, respectively-which is somewhat less than reported from other trypanosomatids, with few introns, and organized in polycistronic units. A large fraction of genes received plausible functional support in comparison primarily with Leishmania and Trypanosoma. Comparing the annotated genes of the two species with those of six other trypanosomatids (C. fasciculata, L. pyrrhocoris, L. seymouri, B. ayalai, L. major, and T. brucei) shows similar gene repertoires and many orthologs. Similar to other trypanosomatids, we also find signs of concerted evolution in genes putatively involved in the interaction with the host, a high degree of synteny between C. bombi and C. expoeki, and considerable overlap with several other species in the set. A total of 86 orthologous gene groups show signatures of positive selection in the branch leading to the two Crithidia under study, mostly of unknown function. As an example, we examined the initiating glycosylation pathway of surface components in C. bombi, finding it deviates from most other eukaryotes and also from other kinetoplastids, which may indicate rapid evolution in the extracellular matrix that is involved in interactions with the host. Bumble bees are important pollinators and Crithidia-infections are suspected to cause substantial selection pressure on their host populations. These newly sequenced genomes provide tools that should help better understand host-parasite interactions in these pollinator pathogens.

Project description:Estimating and predicting temporal trends in species richness is of general importance, but notably difficult because detection probabilities of species are imperfect and many datasets were collected in an opportunistic manner. We need to improve our capabilities to assess richness trends using datasets collected in unstandardized procedures with potential collection bias. Two methods are proposed and applied to estimate richness change, which both incorporate models for sampling effects and detection probability: (a) nonlinear species accumulation curves with an error variance model and (b) Pradel capture-recapture models. The methods are used to assess nationwide temporal trends (1945-2018) in the species richness of wild bees in the Netherlands. Previously, a decelerating decline in wild bee species richness was inferred for part of this dataset. Among the species accumulation curves, those with nonconstant changes in species richness are preferred. However, when analyzing data subsets, constant changes became selected for non-Bombus bees (for samples in collections) and bumblebees (for spatial grid cells sampled in three periods). Smaller richness declines are predicted for non-Bombus bees than bumblebees. However, when relative losses are calculated from confidence intervals limits, they overlap and touch zero loss. Capture-recapture analysis applied to species encounter histories infers a constant colonization rate per year and constant local species survival for bumblebees and other bees. This approach predicts a 6% reduction in non-Bombus species richness from 1945 to 2018 and a significant 19% reduction for bumblebees. Statistical modeling to detect species richness time trends should be systematically complemented with model checking and simulations to interpret the results. Data inspection, assessing model selection bias, and comparisons of trends in data subsets were essential model checking strategies in this analysis. Opportunistic data will not satisfy the assumptions of most models and this should be kept in mind throughout.

Dataset Information

The relationship between managed bees and the prevalence of parasites in bumblebees.

Publications

The relationship between managed bees and the prevalence of parasites in bumblebees.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets